Snowflake adds Grok 4.6 to Cortex AI in public preview

Snowflake is making Grok 4.6 available in public preview on Snowflake Cortex AI. Customers can use the model now through Cortex AI Functions and Cortex Inference.

Snowflake users now have two access paths to the model covered in DataPhoenix’s report on xAI’s Grok 4.6 release: SQL-based AI functions and API-based inference. Access through Cortex AI Functions is not universal. Snowflake’s Cortex AI Functions documentation says the functions are available only to accounts in select regions and require the USE AI FUNCTIONS privilege plus an applicable database role.

For SQL workloads, Snowflake’s announcement shows the AI_COMPLETE function using the model identifier grok-4-6-fast. AI_COMPLETE generates a response from a selected model directly in a Snowflake query.

For API workloads, the announcement shows grok-4-6 used through an OpenAI-compatible client. Snowflake’s Cortex REST API documentation says its Chat Completions interface follows the OpenAI specification and that inference runs within the Snowflake perimeter.

Snowflake’s announcement lists Cortex AI Functions and Cortex Inference as the currently available surfaces. It describes support for Snowflake CoCo and Snowflake CoWork as coming soon but gives no delivery date. The company also says statements about future product offerings are forward-looking and are not commitments to deliver them.