Timothy Spann

Posted on May 11

All Data and AI Weekly #241-11 May 2026

#ai #snowflake #agenticai #mcp

( AI, Data, Agentic AI, Cortex Code, NiFi, Iceberg, Polaris, Streamlit, Python, Java, SQL, MCP, LLM, RAG, Cortex AI, AISQL, Search, Unstructured Data )

Tim's Corner: Happy Mother's Day - Multimodal AI, Iceberg v3, and Summit Countdown

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing moms out there! This week Snowflake dropped one of the most significant AI releases yet: Multimodal Video and Audio Analysis entered public preview - analyze video (MP4, MPEG, MOV, AVI) and audio (WAV, MP3) content directly in Snowflake with AI_COMPLETE using Gemini 3.1 Pro and Claude 4 Opus. Extract brand sentiment, product discovery, and behavioral insights from rich media without moving data. Apache Iceberg v3 went GA with geography, geometry, nanosecond timestamps, variant types, default values, and deletion vectors. SPCS Autoscaling Policies went GA with metric-based rules for automatic scaling. Four new SPCS instance families (GEN_X64_G2, MEM_X64_G2, GPU_NV_L4_G2, GPU_NV_H100) hit GA. SAP BDC Zerocopy Connector went GA for zero-copy data sharing between SAP and Snowflake. Semantic View entity-level filters went GA. The engineering team published deep dives on Apache Polaris 1.4 (advanced multi-tenancy) and Distributed Query Execution Anchors (strengthening the query lifecycle). Plus Cortex Code got a Claude plugin, Snowflake Intelligence launched on iOS, and the ACCUMULATE function dropped.

Summit is THREE WEEKS away - I'll be speaking on NiFi and Agents. Let's dig in!

Tim's Content

Snowflake Summit 2026 - Tim is Speaking!

I'll be speaking at Snowflake Summit 2026 on NiFi and Agents. The Summit is THREE WEEKS away - this is your chance to join 10,000+ data professionals in San Francisco for the biggest data and AI event of the year. Check the session catalog:

Multimodal AI is Out!

Tim's LinkedIn post on the multimodal AI launch: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7457517682158993408/

New SNACK-AI Repositories

Repository	Description
SNACKAI-CoCo-piups-breakout-garden	Raspberry Pi UPS breakout garden sensor monitoring with SNACK-AI
SNACKAI-CoCo-NanoSensorGarden	NVIDIA Nano sensor garden IoT project with Cortex Code
SNACKAI-CoCo-PremiumViews	Premium views and analytics built with Cortex Code
SLACKAI-CoCo-JetsonEdge	Edge AI on NVIDIA Jetson with Cortex Code and SNACK-AI
SNACKAI-CoCo-SnowflakeSummit2026Agenda	Summit 2026 session agenda explorer built with Cortex Code
SNACKAI-CoCo-CortexAITraining	Cortex AI training materials and examples built with SNACK-AI
SNACKAI-CoCo-AIGovernance	AI governance patterns built with Cortex Code and SNACK-AI
SNACKAI-CoCo-FindDataNearby	Location-aware data discovery built with Cortex Code
SNACKAI-CoCo-SpringSnowGhost	Spring ghost detection with Cortex Code and SNACK-AI
SNACKAI-CoCo-AIQueries	AI query builder with Cortex Code
SNACKAI-CoCo-PolyMarket	Prediction market analytics with Cortex Code
SNACKAI-CoCo-VPSCalculator	VPS cost calculator with Cortex Code

Upcoming Events: Catch Tim Live!

May 13: Snowflake NoCode Live (SNL) - Virtual Hands-On Lab
May 14: From Raw Data to a Conversational AI Agent with Snowflake in 90 Minutes - Virtual
May 20: Budapest Data and AI - Budapest, Hungary - Tim Virtual speaking
May 21: Data for Breakfast Encore - Virtual
May 26: Predictive Spatial Analytics: Turn Location Data into Actions - Virtual
May 27: From Raw to Reliable: Build AI-Powered Data Quality Pipelines with Cortex Code - Virtual Hands-On Lab
May 28: Build Your First Agentic ML Pipeline with Natural Language - Virtual Hands-On Lab
June 2-5: Snowflake Summit 2026 - San Francisco, CA - Join me, I will be speaking on NiFi and Agents.
June 4: Conf42 Database DevOps - SQL Automation Operations - Virtual

Snowflake Dev Day (In-Person): https://www.snowflake.com/en/dev-day/in-person/

All Snowflake Events: https://www.snowflake.com/about/events/

Snowflake Summit 2026 - San Francisco, June 2-5

The biggest event of the year is almost here! Snowflake Summit 2026 returns to San Francisco June 2-5. Snowflake announced that Anthropic's Co-Founder and President Daniela Amodei will join the keynote, along with 500+ sessions, 200+ on-site partners, and new AI-powered experiences.

Press Release: Snowflake Makes AI Real at Summit 26

Agentic Enterprise Announcement: Snowflake Expands Intelligence and Cortex Code

Register now: https://www.snowflake.com/summit/

Cortex Code CLI Developer Trial: https://signup.snowflake.com/

Featured: Multimodal Video and Audio Analysis (Public Preview)

Snowflake Cortex AI_COMPLETE now enables advanced multimodal analysis of video and audio content in public preview. Extract brand, sentiment, and behavioral insights from rich media directly in Snowflake without moving data outside the platform.

Supported models:

claude-4-opus - for GIF analysis
gemini-3.1-pro - for MP4, MPEG, MOV, AVI, MPG, FLV, WAV, MP3

Key use cases:

Brand sentiment analysis from video content
Product and trend discovery from visual media
Audio-based sentiment analytics
Video metadata extraction

Resources:

Featured: Apache Iceberg v3 (General Availability)

Apache Iceberg v3 is now Generally Available on Snowflake! This brings advanced table format capabilities including:

New data types: geography, geometry, nanosecond timestamp, variant
Default values: Define default values for columns in Iceberg tables
Deletion vectors: Efficient row-level deletes without rewriting data files

Featured: Distributed Query Execution Anchors

Snowflake's engineering team published a deep dive on Execution Anchors - strengthening Snowflake's distributed query lifecycle. This covers how Snowflake's architecture handles query execution across distributed nodes with reliability and performance guarantees.

Cortex AI & Agents

Cortex Code Plugin for Claude

Cortex Code is now available as a plugin for Claude (claude.com), bringing Snowflake's data-aware AI coding capabilities directly into Anthropic's assistant.

Plugin: https://claude.com/plugins/snowflake-cortex-code

Cortex Agents Monitoring

Documentation for monitoring Cortex Agents with access control and permissions for observability.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/cortex-agents-monitor#access-control-and-permissions

AI_PARSE_DOCUMENT OCR Quality Improvements (May 4)

AI_PARSE_DOCUMENT OCR mode gets significant quality improvements: up to 25% improvement in character and word recognition accuracy with faster processing for enterprise-scale document workflows.

AI_EXTRACT Extraction Scores (Preview)

AI_EXTRACT now provides extraction scores in preview - confidence scores for each extracted field to help assess extraction quality.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/functions/ai_extract#extraction-scores-preview

AI_PARSE_DOCUMENT Documentation

Updated comprehensive documentation for the AI_PARSE_DOCUMENT function.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/parse-document

Snowflake Intelligence Mobile App (iOS)

Snowflake Intelligence is now available on the iOS mobile app - take your personal work agent on the go.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/snowflake-intelligence#snowflake-intelligence-mobile-app-ios

Cortex Code Data Platforms

Documentation for connecting Cortex Code to external data platforms beyond Snowflake.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/cortex-code/data-platforms

Learn CoCo with Rajiv: Cost Optimization Custom Skill

Build a Cortex Code cost optimization custom skill - step-by-step guide to creating skills that help manage Snowflake costs.

Anthropic AI Fluency Framework Foundations

Anthropic's AI Fluency Framework - foundational course for understanding AI capabilities and limitations.

Course: https://anthropic.skilljar.com/ai-fluency-framework-foundations

Snowflake Platform Updates

SPCS Autoscaling Policies (GA - May 4)

Snowpark Container Services autoscaling policies are now GA. Define metric-based rules that control how Snowflake scales service instances up, down, or suspends them automatically. Supports both platform metrics and custom metrics.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/developer-guide/snowpark-container-services/scaling-services

Four New SPCS Instance Families (GA - May 5)

Four new Snowpark Container Services instance families are GA:

GEN_X64_G2 (AWS, Azure) - Second-gen general-purpose compute
MEM_X64_G2 (AWS, Azure) - Second-gen high-memory compute
GPU_NV_L4_G2 - NVIDIA L4 GPU instances
GPU_NV_H100 - NVIDIA H100 GPU instances

SAP BDC Zerocopy Connector (GA - May 4)

The SAP BDC Zerocopy Connector is GA - zero-copy data sharing between SAP Business Data Cloud and Snowflake without moving or duplicating data. Two integration paths: SAP-provisioned Snowflake or existing Snowflake accounts.

ACCUMULATE Function

New ACCUMULATE SQL function for running computations across ordered rows.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/functions/accumulate

Organization Usage: New Network Views (May 5)

Three new ORGANIZATION_USAGE premium views for network security visibility: NETWORK_POLICIES, NETWORK_RULES, and network configuration across all accounts.

Case-Insensitive DDL (Apr 30)

Support for case-insensitive DDL operations, simplifying SQL authoring.

Data Clean Rooms Updates (May 7)

Latest Data Clean Rooms updates.

Behavior Change Releases

Apache Iceberg & Polaris

Apache Iceberg v3 (GA - May 7)

Iceberg v3 is GA with geography, geometry, nanosecond timestamps, variant types, default values, and deletion vectors.

Apache Polaris 1.4 Release

Apache Polaris 1.4 brings advanced multi-tenancy, security improvements, and streamlined deployment. Strengthening the open source Iceberg REST Catalog standard.

Semantic Views & Intelligence

Semantic View Entity-Level Filters (GA - May 5)

Define facts or dimensions as filters in semantic views by specifying LABELS = (FILTER). Filters resolve to BOOLEAN values and can be used as conditions in WHERE clauses, enabling more expressive and governed semantic models.

Release Notes: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/release-notes/2026/other/2026-05-05-semantic-views-entity-filters

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/views-semantic/filters

Snowflake Postgres

Postgres pg_lake Integration

Documentation for pg_lake integration with Snowflake Postgres - sync data from PostgreSQL to Snowflake using Iceberg.

Documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-postgres/postgres-pg_lake

From the Community: Medium & Blogs

Article	Description
Managing Data Products Lifecycle on Snowflake	End-to-end data product lifecycle management patterns
Demystifying Oracle XStream: CDC Impact on OLTP Systems	Quantifying CDC impact on high-throughput Oracle OLTP systems
Learn CoCo with Rajiv: Cost Optimization Skill	Building a Cortex Code cost optimization custom skill

GitHub: Snowflake Labs & Community

Repository	Description
SNACKAI-CoCo-piups-breakout-garden	Pi UPS breakout garden sensor monitoring
SNACKAI-CoCo-NanoSensorGarden	NVIDIA Nano sensor garden IoT
wtf	WTF - personal terminal dashboard
growthcues-core	Growth analytics and cue detection engine
leaf	Lightweight application framework
Scrapling	Intelligent web scraping library
airbyte-agents-benchmarks	Airbyte agent benchmarking suite
tilderun	Tilderun project collection
ph-intercept	Product Hunt intercept tool
rustnet	Network utilities written in Rust

Developer Tools & Open Source

Tool	Description
Phone Sensors Web App	Access phone sensors from the browser
HF Viewer	Hugging Face model and dataset viewer
DS100 Spring 2026	UC Berkeley Data Science 100 course materials
VentureX Lawrenceville	Coworking and innovation space in NJ

Engineering Deep Dives

Distributed Query Execution Anchors

Snowflake engineering blog on Execution Anchors - how Snowflake strengthens distributed query lifecycle management for reliability and performance at scale.

Apache Polaris 1.4: Advanced Multi-Tenancy

What's new in Apache Polaris 1.4: advanced multi-tenancy support, security improvements, and streamlined deployment for the open source Iceberg catalog.

Read more: Apache Polaris 1.4 Release

SNACK-AI: The 2026 Pattern

As we look forward in 2026, SNACK-AI is the architectural pattern for powering AI applications at any scale - from mobile phones and robots to massive enterprise clusters.

SNACK-AI integrates: