THE INEVITABLE MCP BATTLE
If you work in AI, you've probably heard of MCP (Model Context Protocol), an extension of tool calling that allows agents to interact with applications in a standardized way.
Social has been full of glowing reviews of MCP. Standards are awesome, so why wouldn't everyone embrace it?
Two simple, logical reasons that MCP will not be welcomed by the largest and most ambitious applications: (a) Customer relationships and (b) Ads
(a) Any B2B or B2C app that's built deep direct customer relationships over years and decades is going to view MCP as a disintermediatory force, one that decisively makes the AI agent the owner of the relationship. The analogy to search is uncanny: MCP allows AI agents to index apps, just like Google indexed websites. And we know who ended up winning that one.
(b) Any app that monetizes their audience through ads will be even more directly impacted negatively by MCP. Every user who uses an agent to access the app through MCP, instead of logging into the app directly, results in lost ads engagement and ad revenue for the app. Ads is the highest margin revenue stream for many commerce apps, one they will strongly resist any attempt to diminish this business line.
Apps who've always enabled API access, should likely not have any problems with MCP. However, UX-centered apps that have never opened up API access, owe it to themselves to consider the factors above before jumping headlong into MCP.
I'm curious if any of the AI agents who are touting MCP, build an MCP server that allows other AI agents to access their data. ;)
This will be an interesting tug of war.