Chat with Your Data: Snowflake Cortex and the Future of Conversational BI

Have you ever wondered, "Why can't I chat with our claims or policy data the way I interact with ChatGPT on any subject in the known world?" The short answer is that you now can. Snowflake, with its Cortex Analyst feature, is at the forefront of this change. Most importantly, Snowflake Cortex Analyst employs a semantic layer that ensures your answers are trustworthy—based on the right data and data relationships.

Questions to Insights in Seconds

Snowflake Cortex Analyst—a fully managed, LLM-powered feature—transforms natural language questions into precise SQL queries. Consider how Cortex Analyst changes the experience:

• Instead of requesting a report and waiting, an underwriting manager can ask: "What was our loss ratio for commercial auto policies in the Midwest last quarter compared to the same period last year?"

• Rather than commissioning an ad hoc report, a claims manager can inquire: "Show me which geographic regions have experienced the highest increase in water damage claims severity over the past three years."

• These natural language interactions eliminate the translation layer between business curiosity and data insight, democratizing analytics throughout the organization and accelerating the insight-to-action cycle critical in P&C insurance.

How Snowflake Cortex Analyst Stands Apart

Snowflake Cortex Analyst differentiates itself from other text-to-SQL or LLM solutions through several critical factors:

• Domain-specific semantic models that translate insurance terminology into data relationships, ensuring Cortex Analyst understands specific concepts like "loss ratio," "earned premium," or "severity trend," and maps them to the correct data relationships

• Focused use cases that constrain the problem space, dramatically improving accuracy by targeting specific business functions rather than attempting to interpret every possible question

• Intelligent query handling that recognizes when questions are ambiguous or cannot be answered with available data, maintaining user trust by suggesting alternatives rather than providing incorrect information

• Continuous refinement as both the underlying technology and organizational needs evolve, gradually expanding capabilities while maintaining rigorous standards for accuracy

Beyond Technology: A Cultural Transformation

Conversational BI—supported by Snowflake and its innovative counterparts—is truly transformative, ushering in a fundamental rethinking of P&C decision-making culture:

• Developing data literacy across business users, empowering them to become active participants in the analytics process rather than passive consumers of reports

• Redesigning decision workflows to leverage the speed and responsiveness that Cortex Analyst enables, particularly for time-sensitive decisions like catastrophe response

• Fostering cross-functional collaboration through shared conversational interfaces powered by Cortex Analyst, breaking down remaining organizational silos

Looking Ahead

The journey toward truly Conversational BI is just beginning. While the potential is immense, successful implementation requires careful planning, governance, and strategic data modeling.

In the next few blogs, I will dive deeper into how to deliver Conversational BI data products responsibly at scale on Snowflake. We'll explore practical strategies for semantic modeling, examine real-world use cases from leading insurers, and provide actionable frameworks for measuring success. Stay tuned as we continue to unlock the potential of Conversational BI for the P&C insurance industry.