Tool use and MCP

Plain English. Tool use is a model acting on the world: calling a search engine, a database, a calendar, a code runner — anything with an interface. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the emerging standard plug for those connections, so every tool doesn't need bespoke wiring to every model.

Why it moves money. Whoever owns the connective tissue between agents and applications holds platform power — the browser wars, replayed for agents. The tell is who ships the standard: Apple putting an MCP server in Safari normalises the protocol as a platform primitive, while a five-vendor plugin format that pointedly excludes Anthropic shows the counter-coalition forming. Every human-facing business, meanwhile, is discovering it needs an agent-facing interface.

What to watch. Which standard becomes the default in shipping operating systems and browsers — defaults, not specifications, decide platform contests.

From the signals. Safari shipped an MCP server: the browser becomes an agent surface. Five vendors agreed an agent plugin format, and Anthropic is not among them. Every human-facing system now needs an agent-facing interface.

Further reading. Model Context Protocol documentation.