The CDP moves inside the customer's data platform
CDP functions run inside the customer's own warehouse or lakehouse instead of copying data into the vendor's cloud.
The pattern so far
Identity resolution, segmentation and activation are moving into the customer's own warehouse or lakehouse. The pattern emerged in May with warehouse-native activation and Snowflake native apps, was confirmed in June when Databricks entered with CustomerLake, stalled in July while CustomerLake stayed in private preview, and accelerated in August when Zeotap shipped a complete CDP inside the customer's Snowflake account. In September open formats took the same idea one step further, onto the customer's own object storage.
Trajectory
Month by month
- Confirmed Reconstructed
Zeotap launched Open CDP on Apache Spark and Iceberg in the customer's own object storage, with no vendor cloud copy, and Treasure AI tagged every Snowflake query its audience studio runs, so the customer can see the CDP's work in its own query history.
- Accelerating Reconstructed
Zeotap made its complete composable CDP available as a Snowflake Native App that runs inside the customer's own account, with no customer data leaving the Snowflake perimeter. In the same month Treasure AI let Snowflake and Databricks query its CDP tables in place through Iceberg, read-only and without a copy.
- Stalling Reconstructed
No new step into the customer's platform. Zeta announced it would rebuild its own Data Cloud on Palantir Foundry, which is the vendor's infrastructure rather than the customer's, and every edition of the month recorded CustomerLake still in private preview with no GA date.
- Confirmed Reconstructed
Databricks entered with CustomerLake, a CDP built on the lakehouse, in private preview but with consumption pricing already disclosed. Tealium launched a Context API over warehouse data, and Snowflake's marketing data stack report named Iterable as a leader.
- Databricks introduced CustomerLake, an agentic CDP built on the lakehouse, in private preview.
- CustomerLake has no platform fee and bills per identity resolution and profile build.
- Tealium launched a governed real-time context layer over warehouse data.
- Iterable named a leader in Snowflake's Modern Marketing Data Stack report.
- Emerging Reconstructed
Hightouch's valuation made warehouse-native activation hard to ignore, and Tealium shipped a Snowflake Native App for audience discovery.