diff --git a/merlin/systems/dag/ops/faiss.py b/merlin/systems/dag/ops/faiss.py
index 2cb138be2..dce656c36 100644
--- a/merlin/systems/dag/ops/faiss.py
+++ b/merlin/systems/dag/ops/faiss.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 import numpy as np
 
 from merlin.core.dispatch import HAS_GPU
-from merlin.core.protocols import Transformable
+from merlin.core.protocols import DataFrameLike, Transformable
 from merlin.dag import ColumnSelector
 from merlin.schema import ColumnSchema, Schema
 from merlin.systems.dag.ops.operator import InferenceOperator
@@ -189,7 +189,13 @@ def validate_schemas(
             )
 
 
-def setup_faiss(item_vector, output_path: str, metric=faiss.METRIC_INNER_PRODUCT):
+def setup_faiss(
+    item_vector: DataFrameLike,
+    output_path: str,
+    metric=faiss.METRIC_INNER_PRODUCT,
+    item_id_column="item_id",
+    embedding_column="embedding",
+):
     """
     Utiltiy function that will create a Faiss index from a set of embedding vectors
 
@@ -200,8 +206,10 @@ def setup_faiss(item_vector, output_path: str, metric=faiss.METRIC_INNER_PRODUCT
     output_path : string
         target output path
     """
-    ids = item_vector[:, 0].astype(np.int64)
-    item_vectors = np.ascontiguousarray(item_vector[:, 1:].astype(np.float32))
+    ids = item_vector[item_id_column].to_numpy().astype(np.int64)
+    item_vectors = np.ascontiguousarray(
+        np.stack(item_vector[embedding_column].to_numpy()).astype(np.float32)
+    )
 
     index = faiss.index_factory(item_vectors.shape[1], "IVF32,Flat", metric)
     index.nprobe = 8
diff --git a/tests/unit/systems/ops/faiss/test_executor.py b/tests/unit/systems/ops/faiss/test_executor.py
index 3fff19019..93f1358a9 100644
--- a/tests/unit/systems/ops/faiss/test_executor.py
+++ b/tests/unit/systems/ops/faiss/test_executor.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 import numpy as np
 import pytest
 
+from merlin.core.dispatch import make_df
 from merlin.schema import ColumnSchema, Schema
 from merlin.systems.dag.ensemble import Ensemble
 from merlin.systems.dag.ops.faiss import QueryFaiss, setup_faiss
@@ -57,9 +58,11 @@ def test_faiss_in_triton_executor_model(tmpdir):
     )
 
     faiss_path = tmpdir / "faiss.index"
-    item_ids = np.arange(0, 100).reshape(-1, 1)
-    item_embeddings = np.ascontiguousarray(np.random.rand(100, 128))
-    setup_faiss(np.concatenate((item_ids, item_embeddings), axis=1), faiss_path)
+    item_ids = np.arange(0, 100)
+    item_embeddings = np.random.rand(100, 128)
+    # cannot turn a list column in cudf directly to numpy so must delegate to pandas as bridge
+    df = make_df({"item_id": item_ids, "embedding": item_embeddings.tolist()}, device="cpu")
+    setup_faiss(df, faiss_path)
 
     request_schema = Schema(
         [