Snowflake, Salesforce, Mistral AI and other technology companies have launched the Open Semantic Interchange initiative. This aims to standardize semantic metadata so that AI and BI applications can collaborate more easily.
A broad group of technology companies, including Snowflake, Salesforce, ThoughtSpot and Mistral AI, are collaborating on the Open Semantic Interchange initiative (OSI). This initiative aims to create one open and neutral standard for semantic metadata. This standard should help eliminate inconsistencies in data definitions between different AI and BI tools.
Common Language
Today, many tools interpret business data and logic each in their own way. This leads to delays, extra work and uncertainty when implementing AI applications. OSI wants to change this by defining semantics uniformly, so that tools give the same meaning to data, regardless of which platform is used.
According to the initiators, organizations will be able to deploy AI and business intelligence faster and with more confidence thanks to OSI. The standard should make it easier to combine different technologies without confusion arising about what certain data precisely means.
Additionally, OSI reduces the workload for data and AI teams. Instead of losing time reconciling conflicting definitions, they can focus on developing new applications.
(No) Total Support
The initiative receives support from various parties in the data landscape, including Alation, Atlan, Mistral AI, Sigma, Salesforce (and Tableau) and ThoughtSpot. Some other big names are missing. Think of Snowflake competitor Databricks, or Microsoft.
By collaborating on an open standard, the companies want to move away from closed systems and evolve toward a more interoperable ecosystem for AI and data analysis. This concept naturally depends on large-scale adoption.
“The future of AI depends on trust and that starts with consistent, reliable data,” says Southard Jones, Chief Product Officer at Tableau, about the initiative. “By leading the Open Semantic Interchange together with Snowflake and our partners, we are building the foundation that every AI agent and BI application needs.”