diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index f193c2c..9226481 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -105,11 +105,21 @@ commits:
 perf:
   extends: .node-job
   stage: perf
-  # Lighthouse CI drives a real Chrome instance. Playwright's image is
-  # the canonical "Node + browsers" CI image and is already on our
-  # roadmap for the ADR-0016 axe-core e2e — single image covers both
-  # uses once the a11y suite lands.
-  image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.55.0-jammy
+  # Lighthouse CI drives a real Chrome via chrome-launcher, which
+  # probes the PATH / CHROME_PATH for a standard Chrome/Chromium
+  # binary. The Playwright image bundles Chromium under /ms-playwright
+  # with a non-standard name chrome-launcher cannot discover, so we
+  # stay on the base Node image and apt-install Debian's `chromium`
+  # (lands at /usr/bin/chromium). The future ADR-0016 axe-core e2e job
+  # — which drives Playwright directly — will use the Playwright image
+  # instead: the two tools want different things, so they get
+  # different images rather than one image that serves both poorly.
+  image: node:24-bookworm
+  variables:
+    CHROME_PATH: /usr/bin/chromium
+  before_script:
+    - !reference [.node-job, before_script]
+    - apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y -qq --no-install-recommends chromium
   # Skip on Renovate MRs (same rationale as commits + the perf signal
   # on a dep bump is essentially zero). Push events on `main` still
   # run perf — we catch regressions immediately post-merge, not