diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index af643760..c8f7d131 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 # bayesplot (development version)
 
+* Replace `apply()` with `storage.mode()` for integer-to-numeric matrix conversion in `validate_predictions()`.
 * Fixed `is_chain_list()` to correctly reject empty lists instead of silently returning `TRUE`.
 * Added unit tests for `mcmc_areas_ridges_data()`, `mcmc_parcoord_data()`, and `mcmc_trace_data()`.
 * Added unit tests for `ppc_error_data()` and `ppc_loo_pit_data()` covering output structure, argument handling, and edge cases.
diff --git a/R/helpers-ppc.R b/R/helpers-ppc.R
index 5206b9af..618b9fca 100644
--- a/R/helpers-ppc.R
+++ b/R/helpers-ppc.R
@@ -73,12 +73,7 @@ validate_predictions <- function(predictions, n_obs = NULL) {
   }
 
   if (is.integer(predictions)) {
-    if (nrow(predictions) == 1) {
-      predictions[1, ] <- as.numeric(predictions[1,, drop = FALSE])
-    }
-    else {
-      predictions <- apply(predictions, 2, as.numeric)
-    }
+    storage.mode(predictions) <- "numeric"
   }
 
   if (anyNA(predictions)) {