diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapper.java b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapper.java
index 690a136c566e0..9126fd78cada3 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapper.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapper.java
@@ -858,7 +858,7 @@ private static NestedObjectMapper.Builder createChunksField(
         );
         chunksField.dynamic(ObjectMapper.Dynamic.FALSE);
         if (modelSettings != null) {
-            chunksField.add(createEmbeddingsField(indexSettings.getIndexVersionCreated(), modelSettings));
+            chunksField.add(createEmbeddingsField(indexSettings.getIndexVersionCreated(), modelSettings, useLegacyFormat));
         }
         if (useLegacyFormat) {
             var chunkTextField = new KeywordFieldMapper.Builder(TEXT_FIELD, indexVersionCreated).indexed(false).docValues(false);
@@ -869,9 +869,13 @@ private static NestedObjectMapper.Builder createChunksField(
         return chunksField;
     }
 
-    private static Mapper.Builder createEmbeddingsField(IndexVersion indexVersionCreated, SemanticTextField.ModelSettings modelSettings) {
+    private static Mapper.Builder createEmbeddingsField(
+        IndexVersion indexVersionCreated,
+        SemanticTextField.ModelSettings modelSettings,
+        boolean useLegacyFormat
+    ) {
         return switch (modelSettings.taskType()) {
-            case SPARSE_EMBEDDING -> new SparseVectorFieldMapper.Builder(CHUNKED_EMBEDDINGS_FIELD).setStored(true);
+            case SPARSE_EMBEDDING -> new SparseVectorFieldMapper.Builder(CHUNKED_EMBEDDINGS_FIELD).setStored(useLegacyFormat == false);
             case TEXT_EMBEDDING -> {
                 DenseVectorFieldMapper.Builder denseVectorMapperBuilder = new DenseVectorFieldMapper.Builder(
                     CHUNKED_EMBEDDINGS_FIELD,
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapperTests.java b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapperTests.java
index e6d68c8343d8b..b056f5880b21a 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapperTests.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/inference/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/inference/mapper/SemanticTextFieldMapperTests.java
@@ -536,7 +536,11 @@ private static void assertSemanticTextField(MapperService mapperService, String
             assertTrue(embeddingsFieldMapper.fieldType() == mapperService.mappingLookup().getFieldType(getEmbeddingsFieldName(fieldName)));
             assertThat(embeddingsMapper.fullPath(), equalTo(getEmbeddingsFieldName(fieldName)));
             switch (semanticFieldMapper.fieldType().getModelSettings().taskType()) {
-                case SPARSE_EMBEDDING -> assertThat(embeddingsMapper, instanceOf(SparseVectorFieldMapper.class));
+                case SPARSE_EMBEDDING -> {
+                    assertThat(embeddingsMapper, instanceOf(SparseVectorFieldMapper.class));
+                    SparseVectorFieldMapper sparseMapper = (SparseVectorFieldMapper) embeddingsMapper;
+                    assertEquals(sparseMapper.fieldType().isStored(), semanticTextFieldType.useLegacyFormat() == false);
+                }
                 case TEXT_EMBEDDING -> assertThat(embeddingsMapper, instanceOf(DenseVectorFieldMapper.class));
                 default -> throw new AssertionError("Invalid task type");
             }