Snowflake and OpenAI sign USD 200 million deal to push enterprise AI

Snowflake and OpenAI have announced a USD 200 million, multi-year partnership that could reshape how enterprises deploy artificial intelligence (AI) at scale. The agreement focuses on bringing OpenAI’s advanced models natively into Snowflake’s platform, allowing companies to build AI applications directly on top of their governed enterprise data.

The collaboration combines Snowflake’s position as a widely used enterprise data platform with OpenAI’s large language models, including GPT-5.2. The goal is to make AI agents easier to deploy, secure by default, and usable across everyday business workflows.

OpenAI models become native to Snowflake

A key outcome of the deal is first-party access to OpenAI models for Snowflake’s 12,600 customers worldwide. These models will be available through Snowflake Cortex AI across all three major public clouds.

For enterprises, this removes a common hurdle. Instead of moving sensitive data to external AI services, organizations can now apply OpenAI models directly where their data already lives. Snowflake says this approach helps companies extract insights, automate tasks, and build context-aware AI agents without weakening governance or compliance controls.

OpenAI models will also power Snowflake Intelligence, an enterprise intelligence agent that lets employees query structured and unstructured data using natural language.

Focus on AI agents and joint product development

The partnership places strong emphasis on agentic AI, where software agents can reason over data and take action across systems. Snowflake and OpenAI teams will jointly develop new capabilities using OpenAI’s Apps SDK, AgentKit, and APIs, targeting shared enterprise workflows.

These AI agents will run directly on enterprise data stored in Snowflake. According to the companies, this setup allows agents to deliver insights and execute tasks while staying within established security and access boundaries.

Early adopters highlight speed and governance

Design platform Canva and fitness technology company WHOOP are among the early customers named in the announcement.

Canva said the combination of Snowflake and OpenAI has already played a role in scaling its visual AI features. The company plans to explore how OpenAI models within Snowflake Cortex AI can support faster experimentation while maintaining performance and security as its platform grows.

WHOOP highlighted decision-making speed as a priority. The company is using Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Agents to analyze data internally. With OpenAI models embedded in the platform, WHOOP expects to enhance these agents with deeper reasoning capabilities without loosening governance controls.

Governance, reliability, and multimodal analysis

Snowflake positioned reliability and oversight as central to the partnership. The platform offers built-in business continuity and disaster recovery, backed by a 99.99 percent uptime service-level agreement. Governance features are supported through Snowflake Horizon Catalog, which applies responsible AI controls to data and model usage.

The integration also supports multimodal analysis. Through Snowflake Cortex AI Functions, enterprises can apply OpenAI models to text, images, audio, and tabular data using SQL, a language already familiar to data teams.

A deeper working relationship

The deal builds on an existing relationship between the two companies. OpenAI already uses Snowflake internally for experiment tracking and analytics, while Snowflake relies on ChatGPT Enterprise to support employee productivity.

Together, Snowflake and OpenAI are betting that tightly integrated AI, grounded in trusted enterprise data, will move AI agents from experiments into daily business use. For large organizations still cautious about AI adoption, this partnership is designed to lower the barriers.