The Foundation Layer: Context-Oriented Protocols.

Why MCP is Becoming the Standard for Agent-Tool Integration

Author

Gabriel Botsie
July 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

MCP - The Standard for Agent Tool Integration.

What Context-Oriented Protocols Solve

Context-oriented protocols solve a simple problem - how do AI agents access the tools and data they need to be useful?

Instead of your agents being limited to their training data, they can connect to live databases, APIs, and business systems.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is Winning This Race

Developed by Anthropic, MCP has become the closest thing to a standard. Here's why businesses are choosing it:

  • Vendor independence: Your agents can switch between different language models (Claude, GPT, Gemini) whilst keeping the same tool connections

  • Security by design: Instead of sending sensitive data to cloud-based AI services, MCP keeps your credentials and private information local

  • Proven utility: Unlike the other protocols still in development, MCP is already deployed across thousands of implementations

How MCP Works

The architecture is straightforward - your AI agent (the host) connects to multiple clients, each providing access to specific tools or data sources.

  • Need weather data? Connect to a weather server

  • Need to update JIRA tickets? Connect to your project management tools

The Supporting Player: agents.json

This file-based specification lets websites declare themselves as agent-ready. Think robots.txt but for AI agents. Websites can advertise their available APIs and how agents should interact with them, making discovery automatic.

Overall, still early days, but useful for businesses wanting to make their web services accessible to AI agents without major infrastructure changes.

The Regulatory Reality Check

While MCP is gaining rapid adoption, regulated industries like financial services remain cautious. Banks and hospitals are concerned about MCP's constant updates and lack of audit trails, preferring internal agent deployments over open exchanges until compliance frameworks mature.

Recommendation

Start with MCP if you need agents accessing tools and data sources. It's the proven choice with broad adoption and strong security.

Next week: We'll explore inter-agent protocols - when you need your agents talking to other agents, not just tools.

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