diff --git a/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/BUILD b/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/BUILD
index 388366e64..f7c7ea5e6 100644
--- a/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/BUILD
+++ b/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/BUILD
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@ cc_library(
         "@llvm-project//mlir:MemRefDialect",
         "@llvm-project//mlir:SideEffectInterfaces",
         "@llvm-project//mlir:Support",
+        "@llvm-project//mlir:TensorDialect",
     ],
 )
 
diff --git a/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/SecretPatterns.cpp b/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/SecretPatterns.cpp
index b68a33ffe..a3bf21652 100644
--- a/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/SecretPatterns.cpp
+++ b/lib/Dialect/Secret/IR/SecretPatterns.cpp
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Arith/IR/Arith.h"    // from @llvm-project
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Func/IR/FuncOps.h"   // from @llvm-project
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/MemRef/IR/MemRef.h"  // from @llvm-project
+#include "mlir/include/mlir/Dialect/Tensor/IR/Tensor.h"  // from @llvm-project
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/IR/AffineExpr.h"             // from @llvm-project
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/IR/Block.h"                  // from @llvm-project
 #include "mlir/include/mlir/IR/BuiltinAttributes.h"      // from @llvm-project
@@ -98,7 +99,8 @@ LogicalResult CollapseSecretlessGeneric::matchAndRewrite(
   //
   // There is no good way to identify an allocation op in general. Maybe we can
   // upstream a trait for this?
-  for ([[maybe_unused]] const auto op : op.getOps<memref::AllocOp>()) {
+  if (!op.getOps<tensor::EmptyOp>().empty() ||
+      !op.getOps<memref::AllocOp>().empty()) {
     return failure();
   }
 
diff --git a/tests/secret/canonicalize_tensor.mlir b/tests/secret/canonicalize_tensor.mlir
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..39f968448
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/secret/canonicalize_tensor.mlir
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+// RUN: heir-opt --canonicalize %s | FileCheck %s
+
+// Regression test for issue #954 to ensure that generics wrapping tensor.empty
+// operations do not collapse.
+
+module {
+  // CHECK-LABEL: @tensor_empty
+  func.func @tensor_empty() -> !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>> {
+    // CHECK-NEXT: %[[v1:.*]] = secret.generic
+    // CHECK-NEXT: %[[v0:.*]] = tensor.empty() : tensor<1x10xf32>
+    // CHECK-NEXT: secret.yield %[[v0]] : tensor<1x10xf32>
+    // CHECK: return %[[v1]] : !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>
+    %0 = secret.generic {
+      %3 = tensor.empty() : tensor<1x10xf32>
+      secret.yield %3 : tensor<1x10xf32>
+    } -> !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>
+    return %0 : !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>
+  }
+
+  // CHECK-LABEL: @main
+  func.func @main(%arg0: !secret.secret<tensor<28x28xf32>>, %arg1: !secret.secret<tensor<784x10xf32>>, %arg2: !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>) -> !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>> {
+    %c0 = arith.constant 0 : index
+    %cst = arith.constant 0.000000e+00 : f32
+    %0 = secret.generic ins(%arg0, %arg1, %arg2 : !secret.secret<tensor<28x28xf32>>, !secret.secret<tensor<784x10xf32>>, !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>) {
+    ^bb0(%arg3: tensor<28x28xf32>, %arg4: tensor<784x10xf32>, %arg5: tensor<1x10xf32>):
+      %1 = tosa.reshape %arg3 {new_shape = array<i64: 1, 1, 784>} : (tensor<28x28xf32>) -> tensor<1x1x784xf32>
+      %2 = tosa.reshape %arg4 {new_shape = array<i64: 1, 784, 10>} : (tensor<784x10xf32>) -> tensor<1x784x10xf32>
+      %3 = tensor.empty() : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+      %4 = affine.for %arg6 = 0 to 10 iter_args(%arg7 = %3) -> (tensor<1x1x10xf32>) {
+        %inserted = tensor.insert %cst into %arg7[%c0, %c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+        affine.yield %inserted : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+      }
+      %5 = affine.for %arg6 = 0 to 10 iter_args(%arg7 = %4) -> (tensor<1x1x10xf32>) {
+        %9 = affine.for %arg8 = 0 to 784 iter_args(%arg9 = %arg7) -> (tensor<1x1x10xf32>) {
+          %extracted = tensor.extract %1[%c0, %c0, %arg8] : tensor<1x1x784xf32>
+          %extracted_0 = tensor.extract %2[%c0, %arg8, %arg6] : tensor<1x784x10xf32>
+          %extracted_1 = tensor.extract %4[%c0, %c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+          %10 = arith.mulf %extracted, %extracted_0 : f32
+          %11 = arith.addf %extracted_1, %10 : f32
+          %inserted = tensor.insert %11 into %arg9[%c0, %c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+          affine.yield %inserted : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+        }
+        affine.yield %9 : tensor<1x1x10xf32>
+      }
+      %6 = tosa.reshape %5 {new_shape = array<i64: 1, 10>} : (tensor<1x1x10xf32>) -> tensor<1x10xf32>
+      %7 = tensor.empty() : tensor<1x10xf32>
+      %8 = affine.for %arg6 = 0 to 10 iter_args(%arg7 = %7) -> (tensor<1x10xf32>) {
+        %extracted = tensor.extract %6[%c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x10xf32>
+        %extracted_0 = tensor.extract %arg5[%c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x10xf32>
+        %9 = arith.addf %extracted, %extracted_0 : f32
+        %10 = arith.maximumf %9, %cst : f32
+        %inserted = tensor.insert %10 into %arg7[%c0, %arg6] : tensor<1x10xf32>
+        affine.yield %inserted : tensor<1x10xf32>
+      }
+      secret.yield %8 : tensor<1x10xf32>
+    } -> !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>
+    return %0 : !secret.secret<tensor<1x10xf32>>
+  }
+}