MCP (Model Context Protocol)
Also known as: Model Context Protocol
What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)?
An open standard that connects AI models to tools and data sources through one protocol, instead of a custom integration for each. Introduced in late 2024, it has since been adopted across the industry. Think of it as a USB port for AI: build the connector once, and any compatible agent can use your systems.
Why it matters
A shared standard changes the buyer’s calculus in two ways. First it kills the integration tax. Without a standard, every assistant needs a bespoke connector to every system, and the number of connectors grows with both lists multiplied together, which is how integration budgets vanish. A common protocol turns that into build once, reuse everywhere. But connect once has a flip side that deserves equal attention. The moment your systems are reachable through a standard interface, controlling which agents may reach what, and keeping a record of what they did, becomes the central design problem rather than an afterthought. The standard solves the plumbing and hands you a governance question in its place. That is a good trade, provided you treat access control as part of the build and not something to bolt on once things already work.
In practice
Instead of wiring each new assistant into its ticketing, calendar and database by hand, a company exposes those systems once through the protocol. Adding a new agent then means granting it a scoped set of permissions, not writing another integration. The engineering that used to go into connectors moves to deciding, and logging, which agent is allowed to touch which system.
