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Data & Analytics · Intermediate

Semantic Layer

A business-friendly abstraction over physical data that defines entities, relationships and metrics once for consistent use across tools.

Definition

Examples include Power BI semantic models, LookML, the dbt Semantic Layer, AtScale and Snowflake semantic views. Semantic layers also ground AI assistants that answer natural-language data questions.

Exam tip

Consistent metric definitions across multiple BI tools = a universal semantic layer.

Related terms