Today marks a pivotal moment for the future of data analytics and artificial intelligence. Snowflake is incredibly excited to announce our participation in the Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) industry initiative, a collaborative effort poised to revolutionize how we interact with data. We are thrilled to be joined in this groundbreaking initiative by a number of ecosystem partners including Alation, Atlan, BlackRock, Blue Yonder, Cube, dbt Labs, Elementum AI, Hex, Honeydew, Mistral AI, Omni, RelationalAI, Salesforce, Select Star, Sigma, and ThoughtSpot. Together, we are paving the way for a more open, interoperable, and intelligent data landscape.

“At Snowflake, we’ve long believed that interoperability and open standards are essential to unlocking the full potential of AI with your data,” said Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake. “With the Open Semantic Interchange initiative, we are proud to be leading the charge alongside our partners to solve a foundational challenge for AI — the lack of a common semantic standard. This initiative reflects the industry coming together, not competing, to solve shared challenges and build a more connected, open ecosystem for all.”

A Common Semantic Standard for AI-Enabled Data Products and Analytics

At Snowflake, we firmly believe that semantic models and open standards are not just a trend, they are the undeniable future of data. The complexity of today’s data ecosystems demands a unified approach, one that breaks down silos and fosters seamless collaboration. That’s why we are championing the creation of the Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) specification.

The OSI initiative is a collaborative, open-source effort dedicated to standardizing and streamlining semantic model exchange and utilization across the diverse array of tools and platforms within the data analytics, AI, and BI ecosystem. Our shared vision is to establish a common, vendor-agnostic semantic model specification and query API, promoting unparalleled interoperability, efficiency, and collaboration among all participants. By providing a single, consistent source of truth, this vendor-agnostic standard ensures that your data’s definitions and value remain consistent as they are interchanged between AI agents, BI platforms, and all other tools in your ecosystem, eliminating inconsistencies across your different tools.

Key Principles Guiding the OSI Member Charter

The OSI charter is built upon foundational principles designed to ensure its success and widespread adoption:

• Standardization: We aim to establish a uniform language and structure for semantic model definitions, ensuring consistency and ease of interpretation across various tools and systems.
• Interoperability: Our goal is to facilitate seamless data exchange and utilization of semantic models between diverse data analytics, AI, and BI products and services.
• Extensibility: The semantic model will be designed to be adaptable and customizable, allowing organizations and vendors to extend it to meet their specific needs as data requirements, AI, and analytical use cases evolve.
• Open Source: We are committed to promoting community participation and collaboration, encouraging innovation, and ensuring the framework remains relevant and effective in addressing current and future challenges in data analytics and AI/BI.
• Domain-Specific Models: OSI will simplify the process of combining and leveraging data from various sources by standardizing its semantic representation, leading to more comprehensive and accurate data analysis and data product sharing.

Achieving Transformative Outcomes with OSI

The Open Semantic Interchange standard will empower ecosystem participants to achieve significant outcomes:

• Improved AI/BI Adoption: By facilitating seamless data exchange and a common understanding across different tools, the OSI enables faster and more effective use of semantic models in AI and BI tools.
• Streamlined Data Operations: Reducing the complexity of managing multiple data sources and tools, the OSI provides a common language for semantic data, enabling data teams and customers to focus on higher-value analytical tasks.
• Vendor Neutrality: The framework is designed to be independent of any specific data platform, AI tool, or BI vendor, offering unparalleled flexibility and freedom of choice in building robust data analytics and AI/BI infrastructure.

Core Proposal: Building the Foundation

The OSI will provide the essential framework for standards creation, governance, and maintenance for several critical component projects:

• An Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) model: This is the core of the overall program, specifying the representation of semantic metadata in a standardized YAML format.
• Participant-specific model mapping and read/write code modules: These modules will convert OSI models to participant-specific models/languages and will be part of the Apache open-source project.

Snowflake is incredibly enthusiastic about the potential of the Open Semantic Interchange industry initiative to drive innovation and reshape the future of data. We invite all interested parties to join us in this pivotal journey towards a more open, connected, and intelligent data world. Stay tuned for more updates as the OSI takes shape!

Interested in being part of the Open Semantic Interchange? Learn how you can get involved!