🔌 Week 3: MCPs

Connecting AI to external systems using the Model Context Protocol — giving models access to files, APIs, and tools beyond their training data.

Diagram of tangled one-off integrations between apps and tools versus MCP as a shared USB-C-like standard

Before MCP, connecting an AI app to outside tools meant writing custom, one-off integration code for every single pairing — three apps and three tools meant nine separate integrations to build and maintain. MCP replaces that N×M mess with one shared, open standard, often described as "a USB-C port for AI apps": build the integration once, on either side, and it works with anything else that speaks the same protocol.

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