Snowflake's data consumption model has evolved through three phases: from a passive warehouse feeding BI tools like Tableau and Power BI, to a semantic and governance hub with Semantic Views, Apache Iceberg, and Apache Polaris, and toward an AI-driven platform powered by Cortex Analyst, Cortex Agents, Snowflake Intelligence, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The post details the architecture, pros, and cons of each phase, emphasizing the importance of building a centralized semantic layer on open standards (Iceberg, Polaris) as the foundation for AI-driven self-service data access without vendor lock-in.
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