Why APIs Are Essential and MCP Is Optional (for Now)

AI assistants are becoming increasingly central to product experiences, and a new standard has emerged to help build them: the Model Context Protocol (MCP). With adoption from major large language model (LLM) providers like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Gemini, the protocol has quickly gained traction among the broader software ecosystem, with companies left and right building their own MCP servers.

As someone involved in building both MCP servers and API integrations, I’ve seen this rapid adoption lead to confusion. Some developers and product…