Anthropic has launched the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard designed to enable AI models to interact seamlessly with external tools and data sources.(https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol)
MCP is quickly gaining momentum, backed by major industry players including Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, and AWS. OpenAI has already incorporated MCP into its Agents SDK, while Microsoft offers MCP support within Copilot Studio. Similarly, AWS has extended its Amazon Q Developer CLI to include MCP capabilities.
Much like traditional Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), MCP facilitates communication and interoperability between different systems. Developers can utilize MCP to expose their data through MCP servers, and subsequently build AI applications (acting as MCP clients) that interact with these servers. This architecture is primarily designed to empower AI agents.
This protocol paves the way for the kind of interoperability we've come to expect from conventional software applications, but now within agentic systems. These interfaces are expected to evolve further, potentially reaching a point where Natural Language Interfaces (NLI)—similar to how humans interact—could be the primary mode of communication, data sharing, and tool invocation among agents, depending on the specific use case.
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