Snowflake, Salesforce, dbt Labs, and BlackRock have joined forces with industry partners to launch the Open Semantic Interchange, an open source standard designed to eliminate fragmented data semantics and accelerate AI and BI adoption.
Snowflake, Salesforce, dbt Labs, BlackRock, and RelationalAI, along with a growing coalition of ecosystem partners, have launched the Open Semantic Interchange (OSI)—a new open source initiative aimed at unifying fragmented data semantics across platforms. The initiative introduces a vendor-neutral semantic model specification to ensure consistent business logic across applications, addressing one of the biggest roadblocks to AI adoption.
Currently, fragmented semantics across tools cause inconsistent interpretations, confusion, and mistrust in AI-driven insights. OSI tackles this by defining a common, interoperable standard for business, domain, and industry data. The initiative’s goals are clear:
- Enhance interoperability by enabling AI, BI, and analytics tools to ‘speak the same language.’
- Accelerate adoption by ensuring semantic consistency and building trust in AI insights.
- Streamline operations by reducing duplication and reconciliation work for data teams.
The effort is co-led by Snowflake, Salesforce, BlackRock, dbt Labs, and RelationalAI, and supported by partners including Alation, Atlan, Blue Yonder, Cube, Elementum AI, Hex, Honeydew, Mistral AI, Omni, Select Star, Sigma, and ThoughtSpot. This marks a shift away from proprietary, closed approaches toward open, interoperable ecosystems.
Christian Kleinerman, EVP of Product, Snowflake, said: “With the Open Semantic Interchange initiative, we are proud to be leading the charge alongside our partners to solve a foundational challenge for AI—the lack of a common semantic standard.”
Southard Jones, Chief Product Officer, Tableau, described OSI as “the Rosetta Stone for business data.” Ryan Segar, Chief Product Officer, dbt Labs, called it a “universal language for data definitions,” while Diwakar Goel, Global Head of Aladdin Data at BlackRock, emphasised its potential to accelerate AI and BI adoption in finance.
With OSI, the industry signals a decisive commitment to collaborative, open-source-driven standards, laying the groundwork for trusted, scalable AI ecosystems.
