OpenAI is adding support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, an open-source standard for connecting artificial intelligence applications to data repositories. Developers can use it to ensure their chatbots only provide responses based on relevant information.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Wednesday via X that the protocol can now be used in the Agents SDK, its toolkit for building AI-powered agents. The company’s developer team added that it is working on adding support for the ChatGPT desktop app and OpenAI API, and will announce more in the coming months.
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How does MCP help AI systems access data?
Scaling AI models can be a clunky process, as they constantly need access to new third-party data sources, such as cloud servers, business platforms, and legacy systems. Each source will speak its own technological language, requiring developers to build custom integrations for each one.
MCP is effectively a universal language that can be used to develop two-way connections between a wide range of AI models and third-party data sources. “The result is a simpler, more reliable way to give AI systems access to the data they need,” Anthropic said.
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Developers creating AI agents with Agents SDK can either expose their data through so-called “MCP servers” or build “MCP clients,” i.e., apps that easily connect to the servers. This removes the need for countless custom-built integrations and allows AI to access the information it needs across different tools without losing context.
Anthropic Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger said he was “excited to see the MCP love spread to OpenAI” in an X post. “LLMs are most useful when connecting to the data you already have and software you already use.”
MCP was made open-source in November and since then a number of AI platforms have announced support, including Microsoft Copilot, Apollo, Replit, Codeium, and Sourcegraph.
Which AI platforms support MCP?
It was just over a week ago that Microsoft announced MCP support in Copilot Studio, allowing users to connect their agents to MCP servers directly within the platform. But just after the OpenAI announcement, Redmond also released a Playwright MCP server on GitHub. MCP agents will easily connect to the server to gain automated browser capabilities such as clicking, typing, and browsing the web.
Naturally, the more AI companies that adopt MCP, the more valuable it becomes for the AI community. With OpenAI — Anthropic’s biggest rival — now on board, Anthropic may be on its way to establishing the global standard for agent interconnectivity.