Call Snowflake Cortex AISQL functions (AI_COMPLETE, AI_CLASSIFY, AI_SENTIMENT, AI_SUMMARIZE_AGG) from SQL to enrich table data with LLM output

Documented steps

1. Grant access. The AISQL overview states: 'To call any of these functions, your role needs the USE AI FUNCTIONS account-level privilege and one of the CORTEX_USER or AI_FUNCTIONS_USER database roles.' Example: `GRANT DATABASE ROLE SNOWFLAKE.CORTEX_USER TO ROLE analyst_role;` plus the account-level privilege grant.
2. Confirm the functions and your chosen model are available in your account's region before building — Cortex availability is region-restricted.
3. If a needed model is absent from your home region, an ACCOUNTADMIN can enable cross-region processing: `ALTER ACCOUNT SET CORTEX_ENABLED_CROSS_REGION = 'ANY_REGION';` Set it to 'DISABLED' if strict data residency is required.
4. Generate text per row with AI_COMPLETE: `SELECT id, AI_COMPLETE('llama3.1-70b', 'Summarize: ' || review_text) AS summary FROM reviews;`
5. Classify per row with AI_CLASSIFY: `SELECT id, AI_CLASSIFY(review_text, ['positive','negative','neutral']):labels[0]::string AS category FROM reviews;`
6. Score sentiment with AI_SENTIMENT: `SELECT id, AI_SENTIMENT(review_text) AS sentiment FROM reviews;`
7. Summarize across many rows without blowing a single-call context window using AI_SUMMARIZE_AGG or AI_AGG: `SELECT product_id, AI_SUMMARIZE_AGG(review_text) FROM reviews GROUP BY product_id;`
8. Persist enriched output: `CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE reviews_enriched AS SELECT *, AI_COMPLETE('llama3.1-70b', review_text) AS llm_output FROM reviews;`
9. Migrate legacy calls: the AI_COMPLETE reference page states 'AI_COMPLETE is the updated version of COMPLETE. For the latest functionality, use AI_COMPLETE.' Similarly prefer AI_CLASSIFY over CLASSIFY_TEXT and AI_SUMMARIZE_AGG/AI_AGG over the legacy SUMMARIZE naming.
10. Budget for cost: these functions bill Snowflake credits by tokens processed per model, and credits are consumed in the requesting home region even when cross-region inference runs elsewhere.
11. Official documentation: https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/aisql | https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/functions/ai_complete | https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/functions/ai_classify | https://docs.snowflake.com/en/user-guide/snowflake-cortex/cross-region-inference