Category:
AI Standards & Protocols
Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open technical standard that defines how AI assistants connect to external data systems and retrieve information in real time. Before MCP, connecting an AI tool to any given data source required a custom integration built specifically for that combination. MCP replaces that approach with a single, standardized communication layer that any compatible AI assistant can use to communicate with any compatible data system.
MCP was introduced by Anthropic in late 2024. OpenAI and Google adopted it in 2025. Governance was transferred to the Linux Foundation in late 2025, making it a vendor-neutral open standard. Key characteristics:
- Open standard — free to implement, not owned by any single company
- Model-agnostic — compatible with any AI assistant that adopts the protocol
- Real-time — returns live data rather than cached or previously scraped content
- Bidirectional — supports both reading data and initiating actions such as booking appointments or submitting inquiries
- Authentication — the MCP specification includes OAuth 2.1 standards for controlled access to data