AI agents are rapidly becoming integral to modern business and developer workflows. But how do these agents securely and efficiently access tools, APIs, and enterprise data? The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an emerging open standard, backed by Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI and others, that provides a universal way for LLMs to interact with external systems.

In this session, we’ll explore what MCP is, why it matters to both technical and business stakeholders, and how it fits into the AI-agent ecosystem. We’ll clarify how MCP differs from agent-to-agent (A2A) protocols, and why MCP is becoming the “USB-C for AI integrations.” Finally, through a live demo, we’ll build a simple MCP server in .NET/C#, showing how developers can expose their own tools and data to AI assistants like GitHub Copilot or Claude.

Key takeaways:

• Understand what MCP is and why open standards matter.
• Learn where MCP fits into modern AI architectures.
• See the difference between MCP and A2A protocols.
• Watch a live demo of implementing an MCP server in .NET.
• Leave with practical ideas for integrating MCP into your own projects.

No matter if you’re a business leader exploring AI strategy or a developer building AI-enabled systems, this session will bridge the gap between strategy and implementation.