This situation has been frustrating for many, many years:

• I'm zoomed out to a level that makes it tricky for AI to understand what I want Smart Guides to snap to.

• There are many elements in my doc that could be desired for that snapping, but they are a mix of paths, compound paths, placed media, and artboards. Many of these things are FAR away from the elements I'm trying to snap.

• AI either doesn't have any perceived hierarchy or it prioritizes snapping in an obscure way, and it will attempt to snap to those far away things instead of A) things nearby, or B) art boards, which are objectively the most important/obvious thing to be snapping to (that is, if it's a 50/50 choice).

The desired behavior (IMO) would be for AI to choose snapping based on clear criteria, such as:

1. Closest artboard corner
2. Closest artboard edge
3. Closest group or compound path
4. Closest element inside a group or compound path
5. Closest placed media

...etcetera. The above is just a "for instance," but you get the logic — when in doubt, choose the highest thing in the hierarchy, and that hierarchy starts with artboards since those are much more substantial than floating elements and because most designers align things to those more than they do other elements.