Snowflake Summit 2025 in San Francisco brought together thousands of data leaders and innovators for a powerful look at where the Data Cloud is headed. With over 500 sessions, this year’s Summit focused on four clear themes shaping the future of data and AI:
- AI Everywhere – Embedding AI into every layer of the platform to transform how work gets done
- Unified Platform – Streamlining the ecosystem to eliminate complexity and boost control
- Operational Efficiency – Automating workloads to reduce overhead and increase agility
- Governed Innovation – Enabling secure AI adoption through lifecycle control and observability
At 7Rivers, these themes align perfectly with our mission to guide organizations toward becoming Data Native and AI enabled enterprises. Here are the key announcements we believe will shape your data strategy in the months ahead.
AI Everywhere: Snowflake Intelligence and the Rise of Data Agents
Snowflake introduced the Snowflake Intelligence framework, led by Cortex Analyst and Cortex Search. These AI powered agents make it easier than ever to explore enterprise data using natural language. These tools remove technical barriers, allowing teams across the business to generate insights and automate actions with intuitive queries.
This agentic shift extends into the Snowflake Marketplace, now home to a growing set of Agentic Native Apps that help customers securely activate third party data inside their governed Snowflake environments.
While the technology is impressive, 7Rivers knows that AI success starts with clean, contextual, and governed data. Our Data Native model ensures that your foundation, metadata, and access controls are ready to support trustworthy AI experiences that drive real business outcomes.
Unified Platform: OpenFlow Brings Governance to the Forefront
Snowflake unveiled OpenFlow, a new governance driven framework for orchestrating data pipelines. With OpenFlow, Snowflake aims to simplify ETL by managing the full lifecycle of data transformations within a unified control plane.
This launch reflects Snowflake’s ambition to own not just the infrastructure, but the business logic layer, helping companies define and manage data workflows end to end.
At 7Rivers, we see OpenFlow as a game changer for clients looking to reduce technical debt, improve compliance, and gain better control over their data transformation processes. We are already working to integrate OpenFlow with our Profiler and Secure Accelerators to enhance governance and observability.
Operational Efficiency: Gen2 Warehouses and Adaptive Compute
Another major leap forward came with the launch of Generation 2 Warehouses, designed to deliver higher performance and throughput at greater scale. Combined with Adaptive Compute, Snowflake now intelligently scales compute resources based on demand and workload complexity. This reduces operational friction and overprovisioning.
This evolution speaks directly to one of today’s biggest business imperatives: do more with less. By boosting performance and reducing cost, these features help clients move faster without sacrificing control. Our Optimizer Accelerator is already aligned to help clients fine tune Generation 2 Warehouses and unlock these benefits from day one.
Governed Innovation: The Foundation for Responsible AI
Throughout the Summit, governance emerged as a foundational pillar. From metrics trees and policy automation to enhanced lineage tracking, Snowflake is embedding control and visibility at every layer of the platform.
This shift is intentional. Snowflake made it clear they are ready to cede parts of the infrastructure stack, like raw storage, in favor of owning the data model and lifecycle. The goal is to ensure customers can innovate with AI while maintaining trust, compliance, and oversight.
At 7Rivers, we have long believed that governed data is the only data ready for AI. That is why our approach blends technical enablement with business accountability, helping clients deploy solutions that are not only powerful but also sustainable and secure.
A Strategic Acquisition: Snowflake Acquires Crux
Another key step toward platform unification came with the acquisition of Crux, a data integration and delivery platform. Crux helps enterprises ingest and operationalize external data at scale, a perfect complement to Snowflake’s growing focus on AI ready data.
With Crux, Snowflake gains deeper automation for data onboarding and governance. For our clients, this opens up new ways to enrich internal datasets with trusted third party sources, all within Snowflake’s governance perimeter.
AI as a Strategic Imperative: Sam Altman and Sridhar Ramaswamy
One of the most talked about moments of the Summit came during the opening keynote featuring Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Altman’s message to business leaders was clear: just do it.
He described a breakthrough year in model usability, emphasizing that organizations who start using AI now will leave others behind. Altman likened managing AI agents to overseeing junior employees and predicted that models in the next two to three years will be breathtaking, both in their capabilities and in their ability to contribute to scientific discovery.
His vision reinforced what we at 7Rivers have been preparing for: a world where AI is no longer an optional feature but a trusted collaborator in daily decision making.
Charting Your Path Forward with 7Rivers
From data agents to dynamic compute, from OpenFlow to Cortex, Snowflake is building an enterprise platform that is unified, intelligent, and governed by design.
At 7Rivers, we have already adapted our suite of Accelerators and strategic solutions to support these changes:
- Cortex and OpenFlow integration
- Generation 2 Warehouse and Adaptive Compute optimization
- Lifecycle policy and observability extensions
- Agent readiness assessments and governance tuning
Whether you are modernizing your data ecosystem or building AI applications that drive results, 7Rivers is here to guide the journey.
Let us paddle together into the next era of the Data Cloud.
Get in touch with 7Rivers to streamline your Snowflake roadmap and unlock the full potential of your data with a Data Native™ approach.
