AI Agents & Applications · intermediate · concept 156 of 176

🔌Model Context Protocol (MCP)

An open standard, introduced by Anthropic in late 2024, for connecting AI models to external tools, data sources, and applications through one common interface. Developers expose a capability once as an MCP server and any compatible model can use it, replacing per-model custom integrations. By 2026 it is supported by every major AI vendor. MCP standardizes model-to-tool wiring; the sibling A2A protocol aims to do the same for agent-to-agent communication.