mxstbr

I run the team at OpenAI that's responsible for the ChatGPT App Store, Codex plugins, and all things MCP.

The thing that all these "MCP is dead" posts are missing is that whether or not MCP is used as a transport protocol is actually completely irrelevant.

The reason MCP isn't dead is because practically ~every company on the planet is building an MCP server. I know this because we interact with all of them. Most of these companies don't have a CLI. Many of these companies don't even have an external API! And yet, they're all building MCP servers.

And that's why MCP is not only not dead, but more important than ever.

Maybe we will turn every MCP server into a CLI under the hood. Maybe we'll use code mode. Maybe we'll implement tool search.

All of those are just implementation details to the much more important point: our AI agents are getting access to services they otherwise would never have had access to.[0] That's what matters.

So, is MCP dead as a direct communication layer for models to speak to? Maybe, maybe not. Is MCP dead as a protocol? Hell no, couldn't be further from the truth.

[0]: Although I will say the Codex app's computer & browser use features have made this statement a lot weaker than it used to be. If you haven't tried them yet—they're mindblowing.

It's interesting that he signs off with "So long, and thanks for all the fish," which is a quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Just before the Vogons demolish Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, the dolphins, knowing what’s coming, leave the planet and their farewell message is “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

I wonder what he's implying about GitHub…