This is wild.
Microsoft just released an insane upgrade for their OS that will change everything about software development — especially when Google and Apple follow suit.
MCP support in operating systems like Window is going to be an absolute game changer for how we develop apps and interact with our devices.
The potential is massive. You could build AI agents that understand far far beyond what’s going on within your app.
They will now all have access to a ridiculous amount of context from other apps and the OS itself.
Speaking of OSs we could finally have universal AI assistants that can SEE AND DO EVERYTHING.
We’re already seeing Google start to do this internally between Gemini and other Google apps like YouTube and Maps.
But now we’re talking every single app on your device that does anything — using any one of them to get data and perform actions autonomously as needed.
No longer the dumb trash we’ve been having that could only do basic stuff like set reminders or search the web — and can’t even understand what you’re telling it do at times.
Now you just tell your assistant, “Give me all my photos from my last holiday and send them to Sandra and ask her what she thinks” — and that’s that. You don’t need to open anything.
It will search Apple Photos and Google Photos and OneDrive and every photo app on your device.
It would resolve every ambiguity with simple questions — send them how — WhatsApp? Which Sandra?
We’ve been building apps that largely exist in their own little worlds. Sure they talk to APIs and maybe integrate with a few specific services. But seamless interaction with the entire operating system has been more of a dream than a reality.
MCP blows that wide open. Suddenly, our AI agents aren’t just confined to a chatbot window. They can access your file system, understand your active applications, and even interact with other services running on Windows. This isn’t just about making Copilot smarter; it’s about making your agents smarter, capable of far more complex and context-aware tasks.
Imagine an AI agent you build that can truly understand a user’s workflow. It sees they’re struggling with a task, understands the context from their open apps, and proactively suggests a solution or even takes action. No more isolated tools. No more jumping between applications just to get basic information.
Of course the security implications are massive. Giving AI this level of access requires extreme caution. Microsoft’s focus on secure proxies, tool-level authorization, and runtime isolation is crucial. Devs need to be acutely aware of these new attack surfaces and build with security as a paramount concern. “Trust, but verify” becomes even more critical when an AI can manipulate your system.
So, what would this mean for your SaaS app? Start thinking beyond API calls. Think of every other app or MCP source your user could have. Think of all the ways an AI agent could use the data from your app.
This is a clear signal that the future of software development involves building for an intelligent, interconnected environment. The era of the all-knowing all-powerful universal AI assistant isn’t a distant sci-fi fantasy; it’s being built, piece by piece, right now. And with MCP, we’ve just been handed a key component to help us build it. Let’s get to work.