What Snowflake’s 2025 World Tour Means for Modern Enterprises

At 7Rivers, we guide enterprises through the fast-moving currents of AI and data transformation. Snowflake’s 2025 World Tour reaffirmed what we’ve known all along: AI needs to live where your data lives. The future is intelligent, efficient, and governed from the core.

This recap captures the most important announcements, why they matter, and how you can activate them through our Data Native™ approach.

TLDR – The Big Moves

• Snowflake Intelligence (Preview): Chat-native, agent-powered conversational analytics and action layer built directly into Snowflake.

• Cortex AI updates: Expanded support for AISQL, Cortex Search, and multi-step task orchestration via Cortex Agents.

• Adaptive Compute (Private Preview): Self-scaling, auto-optimized warehousing that improves cost-performance and reduces manual tuning.

• Gen2 Standard Warehouses (GA): Speed and performance upgrades for interactive analytics, now live..

• Cortex AI for Financial Services: Industry-specific launch with Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), focused on governed AI in highly regulated environments.

• Claude Sonnet 4.5 now native: Enterprise-grade reasoning and orchestration, available inside Snowflake with zero data egress.

• Recognition: Snowflake ranked #1 on Fortune’s Future 50 list for long-term innovation and execution in AI.

Snowflake Intelligence – Ask, Analyze, Act

Snowflake Intelligence is a first-party conversational analytics interface plus an agent framework that enables users to not only query data but also analyze, visualize, and trigger actions—all governed within the Snowflake platform.

Why it matters:

• Time-to-insight accelerates as business users access data without needing to write SQL.

• Agents close the loop from insight to action, updating systems or triggering alerts.

• Everything operates under Snowflake’s native governance, security, and lineage controls.

7Rivers in action: We are helping clients “talk to their data” and activate Snowflake Intelligence to allow for quicker access to your data with suggested actions, not just insights, streamline HR operations, reduce CX resolution time, and close FP&A feedback loops, just to name a few.

Cortex AI – Your AI Operating Layer

Snowflake continues to invest in Cortex as the AI-native engine for secure, production-grade intelligence.

What’s included:

• Cortex Analyst: Natural language to quality SQL based on semantic models and guidance.

• Cortex Search: Hybrid (vector and keyword) search engine that enables retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) on Snowflake-managed content.

• Cortex Agents: Orchestrate multi-step business workflows and decisions.

Why it matters:

• Avoid risky egress and shadow deployments.

• Get to production AI faster, with fewer moving parts.

• Secure and govern every insight or action from day one.

• Integrate with existing interfaces, leveraging API integrations.

7Rivers in action: We’re deploying Cortex-backed GenAI accelerators and solutions that automate sales research, proposal writing, underwriting workflows, and churn prediction Customer 360 marketing.

Industry Spotlight – Cortex AI for Financial Services

Snowflake’s financial services launch showcases how AI can operate within highly governed, high-stakes environments.

What’s new:

• Prebuilt frameworks for secure AI applications in banking and insurance.

• Partnership highlights with DTCC and Snowflake’s AI leaders.

Where to start:

• Accelerating KYC and CDD reviews.

• Detecting fraud and AML patterns in real time.

• Automating model risk documentation and regulatory compliance.

7Rivers in action: We’re guiding financial clients through high-value use cases using Snowflake Cortex to allow analysts and business users the ability to ask key business questions using natural language, supporting just in time information which leads to better decisions.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 – Enterprise Reasoning Inside the Perimeter

Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 model is now available inside Snowflake Cortex, enabling LLM functionality without moving data outside the platform.

Why this matters:

• Reduce data movement and compliance overhead.

• Run complex reasoning tasks securely and at scale.

• Evaluate model performance without vendor sprawl.

7Rivers in action: We’re integrating Claude 4.5 into GenAI assistants for marketing automation, sales enablement, and claims triage—backed by real-time Snowflake data.

Platform Upgrades – Built for Scale and Simplicity

Gen2 Standard Warehouses (GA):

• Faster query response, lower queue times

• Ideal for interactive dashboards and ELT workloads

Adaptive Compute (Private Preview):

• Dynamic warehouse resizing without manual intervention

• Optimizes spend and performance for variable workloads

Openflow – A New Way to Streamline Data Pipelines
Snowflake also unveiled steady progress on Openflow, its new flow-based data integration service designed for modern ingest, transformation, and reverse ETL. With a growing connector ecosystem and Snowflake-native deployment via Snowpark Container Services (SPCS), Openflow offers a powerful new path for building governed, visual pipelines inside the Snowflake perimeter.

Why it matters:

• Design ingest-to-insight pipelines visually and securely

• Ingest unstructured data like PDFs and images for AI enrichment

• Run custom logic without leaving the platform or increasing operational complexity

7Rivers POV:
We see Openflow as a promising step toward simplifying pipeline development and orchestration across the enterprise. We’re actively piloting it with clients to handle document ingestion, enrichment, and event-based transformation as part of our broader Data Native™ strategy.

Marketplace Momentum:

• Expanded access to curated models, agent templates, and secure app components

7Rivers POV: Use our accelerators, CodeConversionAI, Profiler, and Optimizer to benchmark your Snowflake performance before and after Gen2 adoption.

Strategic Takeaways for Data Leaders

• Build AI where your data already flows
  Eliminate egress risk and centralize governance with Cortex and Snowflake Intelligence.

• Target revenue and risk workflows
  Start with churn prevention, CX triage, KYC/AML acceleration, or sales pipeline optimization.

• Test and scale safely
  Evaluate Claude, GPT-5, or Arctic directly in Snowflake, and pick the best-fit model for each use case.

• Re-benchmark performance
  Reassess your dashboards, jobs, and credit usage with Gen2 and Adaptive Compute.

• Tie AI to real KPIs
  Think query cost, SLA adherence, response time, or win rate—not just experimentation.

7Rivers Makes It Real

The future of AI is inside your data cloud, and Snowflake is making that future accessible now. As a Snowflake Premier Partner, 7Rivers brings the accelerators, frameworks, and real-world experience needed to operationalize these announcements fast—and with purpose.

Our Data Native™ model ensures that every data movement, every agent, and every insight serves a business outcome.

Let’s flood your roadmap with real value.

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