Snowflake Deepens Enterprise AI Push in $200M OpenAI Deal | News

Snowflake Inc. and OpenAI have entered a multi-year, $200 million strategic partnership, announced on February 2, 2026, to integrate OpenAI’s advanced artificial intelligence models directly into Snowflake’s cloud data and AI platform for global enterprise customers.

The agreement, structured around co-innovation and joint go-to-market initiatives, aims to make OpenAI’s frontier models natively accessible inside Snowflake’s suite of AI services, enabling enterprises to build and deploy AI applications and agents at scale while preserving data governance and security.

Snowflake, known for its enterprise data cloud platform used by more than 12,600 organizations worldwide, will incorporate OpenAI’s flagship models, including GPT-5.2, within its Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence services. The integration is designed to allow enterprise users to interact with proprietary data using natural-language queries, generate insights, and develop context-aware AI agents that automate workflows without requiring data to leave the secure platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, OpenAI’s models will be a primary model capability available across Snowflake’s platform on all major cloud providers. The companies said the partnership will also support joint engineering efforts to create customized AI solutions for shared enterprise customers and drive broader adoption of AI agents across multiple industries.

Snowflake’s announcement pointed to early adopters such as graphic design platform Canva and wearable fitness company WHOOP leveraging the integrated capabilities to enhance analytics, research and internal decision-making processes. These customers will have access to advanced reasoning and analysis features powered by OpenAI models embedded directly in Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud environment.

Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy said the collaboration enables organizations to build and deploy AI on top of their most valuable asset, proprietary data stored in Snowflake’s governed platform, with the added intelligence of OpenAI models. OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, noted that embedding the company’s models into Snowflake simplifies the deployment of AI agents and applications by combining advanced AI with existing enterprise data infrastructures.

The partnership is built on an existing relationship: OpenAI already uses Snowflake for secure data storage, analytics and experiment tracking, while Snowflake employs OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise internally for workflow and decision-support tasks. Under the expanded arrangement, Snowflake and OpenAI will coordinate closely on joint product development, including features enabled by OpenAI’s Apps SDK, AgentKit and related APIs that support shared enterprise workflows.

Technically, the integration allows users to call OpenAI models directly from SQL through Snowflake Cortex AI Functions, enabling analysis of structured and unstructured data, from rows and columns to images and audio, within a governed environment. Snowflake’s built-in governance and responsible AI controls, such as the Horizon Catalog, are designed to maintain compliance and security in enterprise deployments.

Industry analysts and market reports highlight that the move reflects a broader trend in enterprise technology, with cloud data platforms increasingly embedding generative AI capabilities to help organizations extract insights and automate complex tasks without sacrificing data governance. The Snowflake-OpenAI deal expands a competitive landscape where peers like Databricks and others are also intensifying efforts to deliver integrated AI solutions to enterprise customers.

By making OpenAI’s models available within its platform, Snowflake positions itself to support a growing range of AI workloads directly on enterprise data, enabling business users across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, retail, and manufacturing to leverage generative and agent-based AI within secure, governed environments.

Overall, the $200 million collaboration highlights the increasing emphasis on building AI systems that work seamlessly with existing enterprise data assets and reflects the strategic value top AI model developers and data platform vendors see in tightly integrating their technologies.