diff --git a/sagemaker-core/src/sagemaker/core/utils/utils.py b/sagemaker-core/src/sagemaker/core/utils/utils.py
index 909e8463a9..163b3b5354 100644
--- a/sagemaker-core/src/sagemaker/core/utils/utils.py
+++ b/sagemaker-core/src/sagemaker/core/utils/utils.py
@@ -273,7 +273,7 @@ def pascal_to_snake(pascal_str):
 
 
 def is_not_primitive(obj):
-    return not isinstance(obj, (int, float, str, bool, datetime.datetime))
+    return not isinstance(obj, (int, float, str, bool, datetime.datetime, bytes))
 
 
 def is_not_str_dict(obj):
diff --git a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/builder/schema_builder.py b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/builder/schema_builder.py
index d68c2bffe1..faa8066d52 100644
--- a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/builder/schema_builder.py
+++ b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/builder/schema_builder.py
@@ -196,6 +196,11 @@ def _get_deserializer(self, obj):
             return StringDeserializer()
         if _is_jsonable(obj):
             return JSONDeserializer()
+        if isinstance(obj, dict) and "content_type" in obj:
+            try:
+                return BytesDeserializer()
+            except ValueError as e:
+                logger.error(e)
 
         raise ValueError(
             (
diff --git a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_servers.py b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_servers.py
index 831c37ee14..e51dca5e6e 100644
--- a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_servers.py
+++ b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_servers.py
@@ -687,7 +687,20 @@ def _build_for_transformers(self) -> Model:
                             hf_model_id, self.env_vars.get("HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN")
                         )
             elif isinstance(self.model, str):  # Only set HF_MODEL_ID if model is a string
+                # Get model metadata for task detection
+                hf_model_md = self.get_huggingface_model_metadata(
+                    self.model, self.env_vars.get("HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN")
+                )
+                model_task = hf_model_md.get("pipeline_tag")
+                if model_task:
+                    self.env_vars.update({"HF_TASK": model_task})
+                
                 self.env_vars.update({"HF_MODEL_ID": self.model})
+                
+                # Add HuggingFace token if available
+                if self.env_vars.get("HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN"):
+                    self.env_vars["HF_TOKEN"] = self.env_vars.get("HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN")
+                
                 # Get HF config for string model IDs
                 if hasattr(self.env_vars, "HF_API_TOKEN"):
                     self.hf_model_config = _get_model_config_properties_from_hf(
diff --git a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_utils.py b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_utils.py
index d486f24acb..b483a1b163 100644
--- a/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_utils.py
+++ b/sagemaker-serve/src/sagemaker/serve/model_builder_utils.py
@@ -992,6 +992,12 @@ def _hf_schema_builder_init(self, model_task: str) -> None:
                     sample_outputs,
                 ) = remote_hf_schema_helper.get_resolved_hf_schema_for_task(model_task)
                 
+                # Unwrap list outputs for binary tasks (text-to-image, audio, etc.)
+                # Remote schema retriever returns [{'data': b'...', 'content_type': '...'}]
+                # but SchemaBuilder expects {'data': b'...', 'content_type': '...'}
+                if isinstance(sample_outputs, list) and len(sample_outputs) > 0:
+                    sample_outputs = sample_outputs[0]
+                
             self.schema_builder = SchemaBuilder(sample_inputs, sample_outputs)
             
         except ValueError as e: