Protocol
Anthropic MCP
Anthropic created the Model Context Protocol in November 2024 as an open standard for connecting AI assistants to data and tools. In December 2025 the protocol was donated to the Linux Foundation, forming the Agentic AI Foundation (LF AAIF) alongside co-donations from Block (Goose) and OpenAI (AGENTS.md).
The origin
- Nov 25, 2024 Anthropic announces MCP. Initial release ships SDKs plus pre-built reference servers for Google Drive, Slack, and GitHub. Launch partners named in the announcement: Block, Apollo, Zed, Replit.
- 2025 Adoption broadens across the agent-client ecosystem. Cursor, Windsurf, Continue, Cline, and Claude Desktop add MCP support. OpenAI ships MCP into ChatGPT Apps in late 2025.
- Dec 9, 2025 The Linux Foundation announces the Agentic AI Foundation. MCP, Goose, and AGENTS.md are the three founding projects. Platinum members at launch: AWS, Anthropic, Block, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI.
What Anthropic's role looks like after the donation
Governance, IP assignment, contributor licensing, and trademark handling now sit with the Linux Foundation. The technical direction in practice is still heavily influenced by the original maintainers (most of whom continue contributing as Anthropic employees), and by the major adopters who showed up as platinum members.
The split is the same one Kubernetes and OpenTelemetry settled into. Process and IP belong to the neutral steward. Day-to-day spec work continues with the people who know the protocol best, under foundation rules instead of a single company's roadmap.
Why the donation matters
A single AI provider owning the protocol that every other provider's clients speak is a structural conflict. Anthropic could have shaped the spec toward Claude's strengths. Moving stewardship to the Linux Foundation removes that lever. The 8 platinum members include every major model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) plus the hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft, Cloudflare) and major adopters (Block, Bloomberg). No single party can dictate direction.
What this means now
Every major AI provider speaks MCP. Anthropic Claude (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) natively. OpenAI ChatGPT Apps as of late 2025. Google has adopted it across its agent surfaces. The long tail of agent clients (Cursor, Windsurf, Continue, Cline, Zed, Replit) all implement it. The protocol Anthropic shipped is now infrastructure the whole industry shares.