MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An open standard for plugging AI into your tools and data — one shared plug shape, so any AI app can use any MCP-compatible connector (Gmail, Slack, calendars, databases) without someone hand-wiring every pair.

It's a USB cable. Before USB, every device came with its own incompatible lead and a drawer full of the wrong ones; now one shape fits everything and you stop thinking about the cable at all. MCP is that, for AI and your systems. Where something has no MCP connector yet, you reach it the older way, through its API (the socket one piece of software plugs into another).

Why it matters: MCP is why an AI can suddenly reach your actual systems instead of just talking about them. Two things follow. Each connector you switch on hands over real power over a real system, so connect what the job needs rather than everything you own. And each one takes up room in the context window (how much the AI can hold in mind at once) — a machine plugged into everything has less attention left for the job in front of it.

Related: API · Context window · Tool / tool call