What it is: MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard for connecting AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to external tools, data sources, and services through a uniform interface. Created by Anthropic, now industry-wide.
Who it is for: Developers building integrations between AI assistants and existing tools, databases, APIs, or services.
Best if: You’ve heard MCP mentioned in vendor announcements and want a one-page explanation of what it is and why it matters.
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What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)?
MCP — Model Context Protocol — is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to external tools, data sources, and services. Anthropic introduced it in November 2024, and through 2025 and 2026 it has become the industry-wide standard. As of May 2026, MCP is supported natively by Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, and most major AI development tools. The architecture is client-server: an MCP server exposes tools, prompts, and resources; an MCP client (the AI assistant) calls them through a uniform protocol.
Why does MCP (Model Context Protocol) matter?
Before MCP, every AI assistant had its own proprietary plugin format. A tool built for ChatGPT couldn’t talk to Claude without a rewrite. MCP fixes that. Build an MCP server once and every supported client can call it. The result is a fast-growing ecosystem of MCP servers for databases, file systems, GitHub, Notion, Figma, Playwright, Slack, and hundreds of other services. It is the closest thing the AI tool space has to a universal plug.
How does MCP (Model Context Protocol) work?
An MCP server is a small program that exposes three kinds of capabilities to clients: tools (functions the AI can call — query a database, send an email, run a script), resources (data the AI can read — files, web pages, API responses), and prompts (templates the AI can use). The client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Gemini CLI, etc.) discovers the server, calls its tools, and feeds the results back into the conversation.
In Claude Code, you add an MCP server with claude mcp add. In Claude Desktop, you edit the config file. The same server works against both clients without modification.
Related terms
Learn more on Beginners in AI
Sources and further reading
Last reviewed: May 2026. AI terminology evolves quickly — verify specifics on the official source pages above.
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