Feb 2 (Reuters) - Snowflake said on Monday it has entered a $200 million partnership with OpenAI to integrate advanced artificial intelligence models directly into its cloud data platform, as enterprises increasingly turn to AI to extract insights from vast troves of data.
Cloud data platforms, where companies store much of their most valuable and sensitive information, are emerging as a key battleground for generative AI businesses.
By embedding AI models directly into these platforms, vendors aim
to let enterprises analyze data, search internal documents and automate tasks more easily, while preserving strict data security and governance controls.
Under the deal, Snowflake and the ChatGPT maker will develop AI agents capable of handling complex workflows, allowing users to ask questions in natural language and receive answers drawn from company data without writing code.
The partnership reflects a broader shift among enterprises, which are moving from experimenting with basic AI chatbots to deploying integrated agents that can work directly with proprietary data, increasingly prioritizing systems that combine automation with tighter oversight.
Snowflake said the partnership expands earlier collaboration between the two companies by making OpenAI's models available within Snowflake across all three major cloud providers, rather than primarily through Microsoft Azure.
Several customers, including design platform Canva and fitness wearable maker WHOOP, are already using the joint offering to speed up research, analytics and internal decision-making, according to the cloud data platform.
The announcement comes amid intensifying competition in the data and AI market. Rival Databricks has continued to scale aggressively, recently raising $4 billion at a $134 billion valuation to fund its "Agentbricks" framework and a growing suite of AI products.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)
