Snowflake expands Microsoft partnership, integrating Azure OpenAI
Snowflake Cortex AI will integrate Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service in Azure AI Foundry, making OpenAI's state-of-the-art models available for use on Microsoft Azure regions within Snowflake, and optimised to reason across audio, video, and text in real-time.
Snowflake Cortex AI will integrate Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service in Azure AI Foundry, enabling businesses to access OpenAI's advanced models within Snowflake on Microsoft Azure regions. Optimised for real-time analysis across text, audio, and video, this integration allows enterprises to create secure, AI-powered data agents within Snowflake's AI Data Cloud By bringing OpenAI's models to Cortex AI through an integration with Azure OpenAI Service, Snowflake further solidifies its leadership in providing users with frontier AI models within the same unified governance framework as their data— ultimately saving businesses time and money.
'We're expanding our long-standing partnership with Microsoft to deliver the best of OpenAI's innovations directly to our customers, further advancing our promise to bring easy, efficient, and trusted AI to enterprises around the world,' said Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake. 'There's enormous power in our customers being able to use OpenAI models directly in Snowflake's secure platform, unlocking multimodal, agentic, and conversational AI use cases that drive high impact.'
. Snowflake's cross-region and cross-cloud AI inference also enables global customers to seamlessly access OpenAI's models from any cloud or region, without needing complex integrations or manual setup. Access to these models is secured with Snowflake's strong security guarantees through deep integrations with Microsoft Azure, providing protected connections for customers on any cloud provider. OpenAI's models provide advanced reasoning and instruct capabilities, allowing users to quickly build scalable AI apps and data agents that deliver accurate, grounded insights using their enterprise data. Snowflake customers achieve this because OpenAI's models run within the security boundary of Snowflake's AI Data Cloud. Snowflake Horizon Catalogue's strong enterprise-grade compliance, security, privacy, discovery, and collaboration capabilities natively integrated into Cortex AI allows users to focus on driving impact with OpenAI's models.
'Enterprises are looking to leverage their proprietary data to create AI differentiation in ways that bring the richest experiences to the world, and the Snowflake partnership with Azure OpenAI Service through Azure AI Foundry will empower our joint customers to deliver intuitive and trustworthy app experiences even faster,' said Asha Sharma, CVP, Head of Product, Microsoft AI Platform. 'It's our shared data-centric approach to AI that helps break down barriers to production for businesses of all sizes'.
Bringing OpenAI to the AI Data Cloud with Azure OpenAI Service
A recent MIT Technology Review Insights report, Data Strategies for AI Leaders, found that 59% of respondents see data governance, security, or privacy as key challenges in deploying generative AI. For businesses, trust and security are critical to AI success. By integrating OpenAI's models into Cortex AI via Azure OpenAI Service, Snowflake ensures strong data governance, access controls, and monitoring—helping enterprises protect their most sensitive information.
With OpenAI's models in the AI Data Cloud, joint customers of Snowflake and Microsoft can now seamlessly combine structured and unstructured data to deliver a richer, more engaging user experience. OpenAI's models will be available on select Microsoft Azure regions in the United States, with plans to expand globally.
In addition to OpenAI's models, Snowflake offers various models from leading providers including Anthropic, DeepSeek, Meta, Mistral, and more, alongside Snowflake's Arctic open source language and embedding models. Snowflake is committed to making the top-performing models seamlessly accessible to users within Cortex AI, allowing customers the choice and flexibility to select the best model for their specific use case.
Snowflake Brings Data Agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Teams
With this expanded partnership, Snowflake is working with Microsoft to bring users Snowflake Cortex Agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams (anticipated general availability in June 2025). Powered by Cortex AI, these agents will allow Microsoft's enterprise customers to interact with their structured and unstructured Snowflake data using natural language directly within Microsoft apps—making it easier to ask questions and gain insights from tools they use every day. This integration helps users of all skill levels access AI-driven insights, boosting productivity and smarter decision-making. Developers can also use REST APIs to build secure, customised interfaces between Microsoft 365 apps and their data in Snowflake, while data and engineering teams can leverage Cortex AI in Microsoft Copilot to accelerate business insights.
Image Credit: Snowflake
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