diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResults.java b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResults.java
index 9c764babe33fc..a5f72bd51c6c6 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResults.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResults.java
@@ -139,7 +139,11 @@ public void writeTo(StreamOutput out) throws IOException {
         }
 
         public Map<String, Object> asMap() {
-            return Map.of(NAME, Map.of(INDEX, index, RELEVANCE_SCORE, relevanceScore, TEXT, text));
+            if (text != null) {
+                return Map.of(NAME, Map.of(INDEX, index, RELEVANCE_SCORE, relevanceScore, TEXT, text));
+            } else {
+                return Map.of(NAME, Map.of(INDEX, index, RELEVANCE_SCORE, relevanceScore));
+            }
         }
 
         @Override
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResultsTests.java b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResultsTests.java
index 46f10928cad08..ff6f6848f4b69 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResultsTests.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/core/inference/results/RankedDocsResultsTests.java
@@ -12,10 +12,12 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.common.io.stream.Writeable;
 import org.elasticsearch.xcontent.XContentParser;
 import org.elasticsearch.xpack.core.ml.AbstractChunkedBWCSerializationTestCase;
+import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.List;
+import java.util.Map;
 
 public class RankedDocsResultsTests extends AbstractChunkedBWCSerializationTestCase<RankedDocsResults> {
 
@@ -37,6 +39,16 @@ public static RankedDocsResults.RankedDoc createRandomDoc() {
         return new RankedDocsResults.RankedDoc(randomIntBetween(0, 100), randomFloat(), randomBoolean() ? null : randomAlphaOfLength(10));
     }
 
+    public void test_asMap() {
+        var index = randomIntBetween(0, 100);
+        var score = randomFloat();
+        var mapNullText = new RankedDocsResults.RankedDoc(index, score, null).asMap();
+        assertThat(mapNullText, Matchers.is(Map.of("ranked_doc", Map.of("index", index, "relevance_score", score))));
+
+        var mapWithText = new RankedDocsResults.RankedDoc(index, score, "Sample text").asMap();
+        assertThat(mapWithText, Matchers.is(Map.of("ranked_doc", Map.of("index", index, "relevance_score", score, "text", "Sample text"))));
+    }
+
     @Override
     protected RankedDocsResults mutateInstance(RankedDocsResults instance) throws IOException {
         List<RankedDocsResults.RankedDoc> copy = new ArrayList<>(List.copyOf(instance.getRankedDocs()));