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

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.