diff --git a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
index d2b10f91c064..0d9328fe136d 100644
--- a/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
+++ b/runners/google-cloud-dataflow-java/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/runners/dataflow/DataflowRunner.java
@@ -1339,9 +1339,9 @@ public DataflowPipelineJob run(Pipeline pipeline) {
     int jobGraphByteSize = jobGraphBytes.length;
     if (jobGraphByteSize >= CREATE_JOB_REQUEST_LIMIT_BYTES
         && !hasExperiment(options, "upload_graph")) {
-      List<String> experiments = firstNonNull(options.getExperiments(), new ArrayList<>());
-      experiments.add("upload_graph");
-      options.setExperiments(ImmutableList.copyOf(experiments));
+      List<String> experiments = firstNonNull(options.getExperiments(), Collections.emptyList());
+      options.setExperiments(
+          ImmutableList.<String>builder().addAll(experiments).add("upload_graph").build());
       LOG.info(
           "The job graph size ({} in bytes) is larger than {}. Automatically add "
               + "the upload_graph option to experiments.",