What is an MCP server, in plain English?
It's the bit of software that lets an AI assistant work with your business, not just talk about it. Without one, ChatGPT can tell a customer you exist. With one, it can check your availability and book them in.
There are three parts. The assistant the customer is using, such as ChatGPT or Claude. Your MCP server, which lists what your business can do. And your own systems behind it: your booking calendar, stock, quote calculator or order system.
Say a customer asks Claude to find a van for Saturday. Claude sees that your connector offers "check availability" and "book a van". It checks Saturday, shows the customer the options, asks them to confirm, and the booking lands in your system like any other.
What does MCP stand for, and who made it?
MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, published it as an open standard in November 2024. OpenAI has since added MCP support to ChatGPT, and other AI companies have followed.
That's what makes it useful. Before MCP, connecting a business to each assistant meant a separate build for each one. With a shared standard, one connector can work with every assistant that supports it. That's why people call it a USB port for AI.
How does an MCP server work?
Every request follows the same five steps, usually in a few seconds.
- The assistant connects to your server and asks what it can do.
- Your server replies with a short list of actions, called tools. Each has a name, a plain description and the details it needs, such as a date, a postcode or a quantity.
- A customer asks for something. The assistant picks the tool that fits and fills in the details from the conversation.
- Your server checks who's asking, runs the action in your booking, stock or quote system, and sends back the result.
- The assistant shows the customer the result, and asks them to confirm anything that books or charges.
What can an MCP server do for a business?
Anything a customer could ask for in a sentence, as long as your systems can do it. These are the actions we build most often.
- Get a quote: the customer gives the details, and your pricing rules work out the figure.
- Check availability and book: appointments, hire, tables, call-outs.
- Check an order: where it is and when it'll arrive.
- Look up products and prices: stock, sizes, specs and "from" prices.
- Take a deposit or payment, with approval steps and spend limits.
Is an MCP server the same as an API?
No, but they work together. An API is how one piece of software talks to another. An MCP server sits on top and describes those actions in a way an assistant understands: a plain name, a plain description and the details it needs.
If you already have an API, the MCP server usually wraps it. If you don't, which is true of most small businesses, the booking or ordering layer gets built first.
Is it safe to let an AI assistant use one?
Yes, when it's set up with care. You decide which actions exist, and nothing else is reachable. An assistant can't wander into your accounts because the connector doesn't offer that.
- Sign-in: customers log in with their own account before anything personal is shared.
- Approval steps: nothing books or charges without the customer's say-so.
- Spend limits: a cap on what any single request can do.
- Logs: a record of every action, so you can see what happened and when.
Where do people find MCP connectors?
Assistants have directories of connectors that people can browse and switch on, and there's a public registry of MCP servers. Being listed is how customers, and assistants, find you.
The main ones today are Claude's connector directory, ChatGPT's app directory and the public MCP Registry.
Does every business need an MCP server?
Not yet. It's worth it if you take bookings, quotes or orders that a customer could ask for in a sentence: services, trades, hire, retail and B2B suppliers.
Very few businesses are bookable by an assistant yet, so the bar is low and being early counts. You don't need years of SEO to compete if you're the clearest, most usable option.