Tools, MCP and the Agent Ecosystem

Suppose a company has 3 AI applications: a support agent, a coding assistant, and a desktop chat app. The applications need to reach 4 services, such as an issue tracker and a database. Each application describes tools in its own format, so each one needs its own connector to each service. That makes 3 times 4, or 12 connectors, and every one of them must change when its service changes.

A shared protocol turns that multiplication into addition. Each service builds one server, and each application adds support for the protocol once, which makes 3 plus 4, or 7 pieces in all