When we started building Data Workers, we had to make a foundational decision: how do our AI agents connect to the dozens of tools in a modern data stack? We could build custom integrations for each tool. We could use existing orchestration frameworks. Or we could bet on the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
We bet on MCP. Here is why, and what we are still figuring out.
What MCP Actually Is
MCP is an open protocol, originally developed by Anthropic, that standardizes how AI models interact with external tools and data sources. Think of it as a USB-C port for AI — a universal connector that lets an AI agent talk to any tool that implements the protocol.
The ecosystem has exploded. There are now 12,230+ MCP servers available, covering everything from databases to CI/CD tools to cloud platforms. A year ago, this number was in the hundreds.
