---
title: "Snowflake's 4 Areas of Investment in AI"
description: "Discover Snowflake's 4-part AI strategy from Head of AI Baris Gultekin: Cortex LLMs, open source initiatives, secure data sharing, and native enterprise apps."
categories: ["AI"]
keywords: ["Snowflake","AI strategy","Cortex LLMs","open source AI","data sharing","native enterprise apps","large language models","data security","AI applications"]
ai_summary: "Explore Snowflake's AI strategy focusing on Cortex LLMs, open source, secure data sharing, and native enterprise applications."
date: 2024-08-09
lastmod: 2026-07-31
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/baris-gutelkin-ai-snowflake/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

In a recent Office Hours, Baris Gultekin, Head of AI at Snowflake & a friend from Google, shared his insights into Snowflake's approach to AI. It was a great conversation to understand how one of the leading data companies is pushing AI forward.

The video for the [session is here](https://office-hours-with-tomasz-tunguz.simplecast.com/episodes/office-hours-with-baris-gultekin-the-era-of-enterprise-ai-is-here
) & the [audio is here.](https://office-hours-with-tomasz-tunguz.simplecast.com/episodes/office-hours-with-baris-gultekin-the-era-of-enterprise-ai-is-here
)
{{< youtube p-IgKq8Wk8o>}}

There are four major pushes for Snowflake within AI. 

1. Bringing AI to Data with Cortex. Cortex is a suite of AI building blocks that enable customers to leverage large language models (LLMs) & build applications. Both structured data & unstructured data (extracting information from presentations & pdfs) can be built using Cortex.
2. Developing open source initiatives including a data catalog, Polaris, & an open LLM Model Arctic which focuses on SQL performance. Open source is a new motion for Snowflake.
3. Securing data sharing to bring data into customers' accounts for AI. Data sharing across customers enables a marketing organization to use data from a credit card company to build a model for customer marketing.
4. Developing a platform atop Snowflake with native apps to enable a retailer to provide a search experience to their wholesalers, for example.

We also chatted about the importance of data access security for AI applications. For many data leaders, this is one of the top priorities to understand before deploying AI.

Thanks, Baris, for sharing your perspectives!