Welcome to this exclusive interview with Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake, part of the Cloud Wars Top 10 CEO Outlook 2025 series. Ramaswamy sits down with Bob Evans, founder, Cloud Wars, to share insights into Snowflake’s latest initiatives, the future of data and AI, a groundbreaking data literacy program, the challenges of AI adoption, and how competition drives innovation in the cloud computing space.
Highlights
The Future of AI and Data in 2025 (01:26)
There’s a lot of excitement and prototyping around AI. “People are excited that they can ask questions and get real answers instead of getting the proverbial 10 blue links. I think people see the promise of things like that. How do you make that work at scale? How do you make that work in a reliable way, and how do you make it work in a way that’s not expensive?” Ramaswamy shares a recent experience in India, describing the cost-consciousness of customers and the focus on making data accessible and valuable.
Shifting Priorities for Snowflake Customers (03:45)
What do customers want? Ramaswamy identifies goals including empowering business users with data faster and unlocking the value of unstructured information. In response, Snowflake is helping customers access and utilize historical information and build hybrid systems. He notes that SQL enables easier data transformations and extractions.
Cultural Change and AI Adoption (07:02)
Cultural change is required for companies to handle AI. Even within Snowflake, adopting AI has been a challenging process. Snowflake’s engineering and sales teams are beginning to use AI tools like Copilot and Cortex, but there’s a need for ongoing practice to fully integrate AI into daily operations. “AI has a while to go before everybody can understand, ‘Okay, I know how to … do these 20 things that are commonly, easily doable by AI, but I still need to develop the muscle memory of being able to automatically get to those things’.”
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The Promise of AI and Data Platforms (10:43)
AI has the potential to free up significant time for employees, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks. Snowflake aspires to make data platforms simple and accessible, allowing users to perform complex tasks with ease. Its consumption model has several benefits and aligns it with business goals of making more money or spending less. Companies like Siemens are using chatbots to improve efficiency and access to information.
Competition and Innovation in the Data Market (17:59)
Competition, Ramaswamy says, drives innovation and improves products. It only strengthens Snowflake, which stands apart due to its unified platform, tight integration, and ease of use. “If you create a chatbot with Snowflake, it will automatically obey all of the access control rules that you have set up. It will automatically obey all of the data masking that your administrator has set up.” Ramaswamy discusses the challenges of balancing innovation with maintaining simplicity and efficiency in Snowflake’s product offerings.
Mega Trends and Challenges for Snowflake (20:53)
Ramaswamy sees two mega trends for 2025: the rise of interoperable data formats and the acceleration of AI. Snowflake is well-positioned to take advantage of these trends through its end-to-end offerings and data engineering capabilities. However, there are challenges to maintaining data quality and speed while innovating rapidly. AI tools like agents must drive real utility and value for customers.
Data Literacy Initiative: 1 Million Plus One (24:41)
Snowflake has a new initiative, One Million Minds Plus One, aimed at improving data literacy. Data can be difficult to interpret, and the right skills are necessary to do so. Snowflake is spearheading an ambitious program to educate over a million people in data literacy, free of charge. The initiative includes teaching concepts like data engineering, data analytics, and using BI tools and notebooks for interactive analysis.
Excitement for 2025 (26:25)
Sridhar expresses excitement about the potential for AI and data to drive real business transformations in 2025. Snowflake will continue to play a vital role in helping customers become truly data-driven organizations. Navigating growth, competition, and innovation while maintaining simplicity and value for customers is key.
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