Anthropic is proposing a new standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives, called Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Anthropic has released a new open-source tool to connect AI assistants directly to the information they need to inform their responses or carry out tasks. The new Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a universal connection to all sorts of data sources,

Anthropic says the software has already been adopted by several tech firms. Companies can connect their LLMs to external systems in a bid to make them more useful. An electronics maker, for example, could equip an LLM with the ability to answer customer support requests by giving it access to a repository of troubleshooting guides.