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 and more relevant responses to queries.
“People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products,” he 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 (e.g., 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 released it, companies including Block, Apollo, Replit, Codeium, and Sourcegraph have added MCP support to their platforms.
“Excited to see the MCP love spread to OpenAI – welcome!” Anthropic chief product officer Mike Krieger said in post on X. “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 said it plans to share more about its MCP support plans in the coming months.
