MCP Live! | A half-day livestream about the latest in MCP

Microsoft Developer · 2026-09-09

MCP Live! | A half-day livestream about the latest in MCPMicrosoft Developer ▶ Play the video

Why it earned a slot

This event covers the Model Context Protocol (MCP), described as the "open standard for connecting AI models to tools and data." The sessions detail MCP's role as an open standard, its adoption in the developer ecosystem, and specific implementations including a "unified MCP layer with Toolboxes in Microsoft Foundry" and the "evolution of MCP auth" involving Anthropic and Okta.

The short version

The open standard for AI tool-use

Why it matters

For those building AI systems, the ability to connect models to tools and data via an open standard is critical for enterprise readiness, specifically regarding authentication, governance, and security.

My take

I work in AI and I build agentic AI systems, so I'd argue that MCP's focus on enterprise readiness—specifically authentication and governance—is what will actually move this from a developer curiosity to a production requirement.

How it connects

• Evaluate the effort of building a custom tool connector versus implementing an MCP server for your specific data source.
• Compare the authentication flow of a standard API integration against the "linking" approach described by Okta on your own workload.

Bottom line

Explore the FastMCP framework if you need to add interactive UI elements to your MCP-based chatbot.