A different charger for every phone
Back in the day, every phone brand had its own charger. You carried a bag of cables everywhere. AI and tools used to be exactly like that.
THE PROBLEM
Five AIs, ten tools
Every AI app that wanted to connect to Drive, a calendar or sales software had to build a separate integration. Five AIs and ten tools means fifty integrations. One breaks, you fix one.
MCP
One shared port
MCP, short for Model Context Protocol, was made to solve that. It's a standard protocol, like a USB-C port for AI. Any tool with an MCP server can plug into any AI app that supports MCP.
WHO MADE IT?
An open standard, owned by no one
Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, released MCP in late 2024 as an open standard anyone can use. ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot then added support. MCP has now been handed to a shared industry group, so no single company owns it.
THE BENEFIT
Build once, use everywhere
For you, the benefit is very practical: a tool builds an MCP server once, and it works in many AI apps. Switch to another AI, and your connections are still there.
NEXT
Inside the socket
Plugging in is easy. But what's inside the socket? Part three opens it up.
This article is based on the video MCP: a shared charging port for AI from the Mark học AI channel. Watch the video (in Vietnamese) to see the animations.