Snowflake Unveils Cortex AI for Financial Services: Bridging Data and AI in a Secure Ecosystem

Snowflake adds MCP support, new AI suite for financial services

Both aim to make agentic AI more secure for sensitive datasets. On Thursday, data platform Snowflake announcde its own Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, in keeping with the quick trend Anthropic set with the protocol last spring. The company also announced a new package of AI tools specifically geared toward financial services, allowing them to develop AI agents safely and securely. Also: How Snowflake's new tools turn business analysts into AI developers The new tools are an extension of Snowflake's Cortex AI, the company's existing AI services bundle that includes agents, data querying features, analysis, and partnerships with frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI, among other perks. Cortex AI for Financial Services is tailored for that industry. Also: ChatGPT can now connect to MCP servers - here's how, and what to watch for AI systems, especially agents, are only as effective as the data to which they have access. Financial institutions have sensitive proprietary data about clients, trades, and transactions -- keeping that secure while also leveraging it for automating tasks, fraud detection, analysis, and more can be a delicate process. "Embedding AI in financial services requires a dual approach: making the technology deeply understand the business and making it easily accessible to everyone while maintaining trust and security," Snowflake said in a blog post. According to a recent MIT study, 95% of organizations struggle to see ROI from AI adoption, running into issues like mistrust, poor application, insufficient training, and lack of security infrastructure as roadblocks. In short, MCP allows LLMs and agents to securely connect with all kinds of previously siloed, proprietary, or otherwise inaccessible data sources. In public preview, the server lets businesses connect Snowflake AI with external agents. For example, Snowflake has integrated Anthropic's Claude for Financial Services with Cortex AI. Also: Anthropic now lets developers use Claude Code with any remote MCP server "With Snowflake MCP Server, remote agents can now connect with Snowflake data -- as well as third-party data shares from Snowflake Marketplace through Cortex Knowledge Extensions -- enabling interoperability with the broader AI ecosystem," Snowflake said. For finance, the integration could help a portfolio manager connect the dots between news, market data, and earnings calls to find investment opportunities. It could also help a banker finalize lending decisions using summarized risk intelligence from property data, customer conversations, and loan documents, according to Snowflake. Also: Snowflake launches Openflow to help businesses manage data in the age of AI Financial institutions can also use Snowflake MCP Server to connect to platforms and products from companies including Anthropic, MistralAI, Cursor, Salesforce's Agentforce, Workday, and more. Snowflake announced a set of tools for integrating AI agents with finance. According to Snowflake, the new suite makes tasks like claims management and quantitative research easier (and scalable) with AI while keeping data pathways secure. Also: Snowflake's new AI agents make it easier for businesses to make sense of their data The tools bring together insights from an organization's proprietary data, external structured data, and information from unstructured data like journalistic articles for "richer, more context-driven insights," Snowflake said in a blog. The company's goal is to provide an end-to-end pipeline for businesses that preps their data for AI, applies agentic solutions, and creates observability, all while maintaining governance and security standards. "Financial services firms rely on data scientists for risk modeling, forecasting, trading analytics, and compliance, but much of their time is spent on data preparation and repetitive coding," Snowflake noted in the blog. The new tools build on the company's existing AI offerings, including Snowflake Intelligence and Data Science Agent, as well as Cortex AISQL, which lets analysts use SQL query language commands to contain what AI models generate, making the information easier to contextualize. Also: Too many AI tools? This platform manages them all in one place For financial services, Snowflake Openflow helps businesses port data like call center transcripts and claims reports across silos, while Cortex AISQL lets analysts transcribe earnings calls, structuring previously hard-to-use data into a workable tool. Cortex Agents, in public preview, help glean insights from structured and unstructured data as well. Data Science Agent uses natural language to help institutions build credit risk models or fraud detection systems "in minutes," Snowflake said. "Automating data cleaning, feature engineering, model prototyping, and validation so teams can move from raw data to production-ready models faster." With features like Snowflake Marketplace, users can also access third-party data securely to help automate workflows. Cortex AI for Financial Services then allows clients to connect directly and securely with multiple frontier models. Cortex AI for Financial Services is available today. Snowflake MCP Server is in public preview starting today. Enterprises can request a demo or contact Snowflake sales directly. Also: 50 AI agents get their first annual performance review - 6 lessons learned Get the morning's top stories in your inbox each day with our Tech Today newsletter.

Snowflake's first industry-specific AI suite targets financial services - SiliconANGLE

Snowflake's first industry-specific AI suite targets financial services Snowflake Inc. today unveiled its first set of bundled artificial intelligence tools oriented toward a vertical industry. Cortex AI for Financial Services encompasses a suite of capabilities and data partnerships aimed at banks, insurers and investment firms. The company also announced the Snowflake-hosted Model Context Protocol Server in public preview, providing a secure and standardized way for users to connect enterprise data with third-party AI agents and data sources. While the company has rolled out numerous AI tools across its platform over the past year, this is the first time it has addressed a specific industry. Rival Databricks Inc. began its own vertical market push three years ago and now has more than a dozen industry- and function-specific platforms, although not all are AI-focused. Financial services was chosen as the first vertical because of strong demand and Snowflake's large footprint in that industry, said Baris Gultekin, the company's vice president of AI. "These are customers that are using our AI products heavily, so we wanted to make these solutions a lot easier for them to consume," he said. Snowflake's offering doesn't include any new technology but packages existing products and partnerships. "There's nothing new here in terms of new products," Gultekin said. "It's the way they're being packaged together". The package combines Snowflake's AI tools with structured data from partners such as FactSet Research Systems Inc. and MSCI Inc. along with unstructured content from publishers including the Associated Press, Washington Post and Investopedia. Snowflake said the goal is to allow financial institutions to build AI models and agents inside its secure boundary, while also drawing from external sources. The managed MCP Server provides the technical underpinning for this approach. MCP is a specification for connecting large language models to data, application programming interfaces and external services. Snowflake already supported the MCP standard, but the new announcement introduces a hosted server managed by company itself. "This is a Snowflake-hosted MCP server where we handle everything from authorization to all of the data processing," Gultekin said. "That MCP server can then be used to plug into interfaces for services such as Cursor, Anthropic and ChatGPT." The MCP Server is available to all Snowflake customers, not just those in financial services. Pricing will follow Snowflake's existing function-based model. Supporting services such as quick starts, code samples and sales enablement will be included to help customers adopt the tools. Snowflake indicated that additional vertical-specific bundles are under consideration. "This is our first foray," Gultekin said. "We are definitely looking into other options as well."

Snowflake Unveils Cortex AI for Financial Services: Enterprise-Ready AI Built to Scale

Snowflake announced Snowflake Cortex AI for Financial Services, a comprehensive suite of AI capabilities and partnerships that empower financial services companies to unify their financial data ecosystem and securely deploy AI models, apps, and agents with that data -- while offering rigorous security and compliance controls required in regulated industries. Snowflake also announced a new managedModel Context Protocol (MCP) Server (now in public preview), enabling organizations to easily and securely harness their own proprietary data and third-party data in Snowflake from partners including FactSet, MSCI, Nasdaq eVestment®?, and The Associated Press. Customers will then be able to leverage this managed MCP Server to connect their data with apps and agent platforms like Anthropic, CrewAI, Cursor, Devin by Cognition, Salesforce's Agentforce, UiPath,and Windsurf,to build context-rich AI agents and apps. With these innovations, customers across financial services and other industries can rapidly deploy trusted AI through solutions that are purpose-built for their specific needs, while providing the broader industry with seamless, secure connectivity across their data and AI ecosystems. Introducing Cortex AI for Financial Services enables enterprise-ready agents to accelerate complex financial tasks -- including market analysis, quantitative research, fraud detection, customer support, and claims management -- saving enterprises time, reducing operational costs, and delivering faster insights. Snowflake's MCP Server extends this capability by enabling industry-wide interoperability, securely connecting to Snowflake data, as well as third-party data and apps. The Cortex AI for Financial Services ecosystem offers high-quality, trusted data from leading financial data providers and publishers that organizations can seamlessly integrate with their AI apps and agents -- including structured data providers like CB Insights, Cotality??, Deutsche Borse, MSCI, and Nasdaq eVestment?? through Sharing of Semantic Views (generally available soon); and unstructured data publishers like CB Insights, FactSet, Investopedia, The Associated Press, and The Washington Post through Cortex Knowledge Extensions (now generally available). By combining industry-specific data from leading financial institutions and publishers that organizations can seamlessly integration with their AI apps and agents - including structured data providers like CBInsights, Cotality??), Deutsche Borse, MSC I, and Nasdaq eVESTment®? through Sharing of Semantic views (generally available soon);and unstructured data publishers likeCB Insights, FactSet, investopedia, The Associated Press), and The Washington Post through Cortex knowledge Extensions (now generally available). by combining industry-specific data fromleading financial institutions and publishers -- such as market analysis, expert research, business content, and news -- with their own proprietary data in Snowflake, financial services companies can get deeper insights, accuracy, and results from their AI. MCP has emerged in recent months as a solution to this problem, providing a standardized way for LLMs to integrate with data, APIs, and services. With the introduction of Snowflake MCP Server, enterprises can: Enable MCP Server to connect with tools built on Snowflake: Snowflake MCP Server connects Cortex Analyst and Cortex Search to external AI agents through a standards-based MCP interface, unifying structured and unstructured data retrieval. This simplifies enterprises? application architecture and eliminates the need for custom integrations ? accelerating the delivery of context-rich AI apps and agents. Access proprietary and third-party data shared on Snowflake with external tools: With Snowflake MCP Server, remote agents can now connect with Snowflake data ? as well as third-party data shares from Snowflake Marketplace through Cortex Knowledge Extensions ? enabling interoperability with the broader AI ecosystem.