OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data

OpenAI is embracing rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides.

In a post on X on Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI will add support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, or MCP, across its products, including the desktop app for ChatGPT. MCP is an open source standard that helps AI models produce better, more relevant responses to certain queries.

“People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products,” Altman said. “[It’s] available today in the Agents SDK and support for [the] ChatGPT desktop app [and] Responses API [is] coming soon!”

MCP lets models draw data from sources like business tools and software to complete tasks, as well as from content repositories and app development environments. The protocol enables developers to build two-way connections between data sources and AI-powered applications, such as chatbots.

Developers can expose data through “MCP servers” and build “MCP clients” — for instance, apps and workflows — that connect to those servers on command. In the months since Anthropic open sourced MCP, companies including Block, Apollo, Replit, Codeium, and Sourcegraph have added MCP support for their platforms.

“Excited to see the MCP love spread to OpenAI – welcome!” Anthropic chief product officer Mike Krieger said in an X post. “MCP has [become a] thriving open standard with thousands of integrations and growing. LLMs are most useful when connecting to the data you already have and software you already use.”

OpenAI says it intends to share more about its MCP plans in the coming months.