Model Context Protocol (MCP)
An open standard for connecting an agent to tools and data: one protocol instead of a separate integration for every service.
A server offers tools, resources, and prompts; a client — an agent, an editor, a desktop app — connects and uses them. Because the shape is fixed, the same server works with every client that speaks the protocol, and the same client reaches every server.
That is the whole economics of it. Without a standard, connecting five agents to five services is twenty-five pieces of glue. With one, it is ten.
For companies the interesting part is not the connection but the control: the protocol is where access is granted, scoped, and logged, which is why enterprise requirements pushed it toward a release candidate rather than the other way around.