Snowflake has a built-in advantage in AI since many enterprises already store much of their data on its cloud platform. The next step is to launch agentic AI that can act directly on that data.
On Tuesday, the company unveiled Cortex Code, an AI coding agent that understands and operates off a deep understanding of the company’s data, which the company explains is the tool’s competitive edge against more “generic” coding tools.
“The real limitation of AI coding today isn’t model capability – it’s context. Enterprises run on systems with rules around data, access, and accountability, and most coding agents don’t operate with those constraints in mind,” Dwarak Rajagopal, VP of AI Engineering and Research at Snowflake, told The Deep View. “Cortex Code was built directly on Snowflake’s governed data foundation, so that context is inherent by design."
With the new AI agent, all organization members can build analytics, data pipelines, and AI apps faster, regardless of technical expertise, while staying aligned with Snowflake’s existing data governance policies.
Cortex Code can be used across Snowflake experiences and local developer environments to fit naturally into users’ workflows. Accessing Cortex Code in the users’ preferred terminal or code editor, such as VS Code or Cursor, via the Cortex Code CLI is now generally available. Accessing Cortex Code on the Snowflake platform via Cortex Code in Snowsight will be generally available soon.
Other announcements included:
- A new integration with v0 by Vercel enables employees to vibe-code AI-powered data apps in Snowflake using Snowpark Container Services, which will be generally available soon.
- An integration with the Brave Search API brings real-time web knowledge into Snowflake Intelligence, the company’s AI product suite that includes Cortex Code and Cortex Agents, now in public preview.
- Snowflake updated its collaborative workspaces with Shared Workspaces, Snowflake Notebooks, and OpenID Connect (OIDC)-based authentication, all being generally available.
This follows Monday's announcement of a multi-year, $200 million partnership that will further integrate OpenAI's tools into Snowflake's platform for both employees and clients, and help deploy better agentic solutions to Snowflake customers.