Most Developers Call AI Data With APIs and A2A

A recent Theory Ventures survey found that 91% out of 413 senior technical builders surveyed are either directly building AI, or managing teams that build AI. That said, only 17% are building MCP servers. This contrasts with the 46% that are using direct tool calling, including via APIs and A2A, to access data.

The survey found the most common use case for agent tools is accessing databases, with 72% of respondents using AI agents to do this.

Nearly everyone (98%) is evaluating the quality of their AI, usually using a combination of automated…