What is MCP, and which MCP servers should SMBs use?
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard, introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, that lets AI assistants connect to tools and data through a common interface. Think of it as USB-C for AI: build a connector once and any MCP-compatible client (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and others) can use it.
Why it matters for a small business
Without MCP, an assistant can only talk about your business. With MCP, it can look up a customer, draft an invoice or file an issue in the systems you already use, within the permissions you grant.
Practical MCP servers to start with
- Zapier MCP: exposes actions across Zapier's app catalog. The fastest path if you already use Zapier.
- Stripe MCP: lets agents look up customers, payments and invoices.
- GitHub MCP Server: for teams that manage a website or code on GitHub.
- Cloudflare MCP servers: manage sites and DNS on Cloudflare, or host your own remote MCP server.
- Reference servers: filesystem, fetch, git and more, mainly useful for learning and local use.
- Smithery: a registry to discover more servers.
Safety checklist
- Prefer official servers from the vendor.
- Grant the narrowest scopes and read-only access where possible.
- Require confirmation for actions that send, pay or delete.
- Be careful with untrusted content (emails, web pages), since prompt injection is a real risk with tool-using agents.
Want help wiring MCP into your stack? See integration help.