At the Build 2025 event, Microsoft announced that native MCP (Model Context Protocol) support is coming to Windows 11. In case you are unaware, MCP is an open standard that allows AI models to communicate with external data, API, or services. MCP has been introduced by Anthropic to leverage the power of AI with external data. It can be used to enable AI agents on Windows 11.

What is MCP?

MCP is an open standard that allows AI models to interact with external data, APIs, and services. It enables AI agents to better understand context and take actions based on information beyond their immediate environment. Essentially, MCP acts as a bridge between AI models and the tools they need to function effectively.

MCP Roles
MCP defines three key roles:

MCP Hosts – Applications like VS Code or other AI tools that want to access capabilities via MCP.

MCP Clients – Clients that initiate requests to MCP servers.

MCP Servers – Lightweight services that expose specific capabilities (e.g., file system access, semantic search, app actions) through the MCP interface.

How Windows 11 is Implementing MCP

Microsoft has introduced several new components to integrate MCP into Windows 11:

1. MCP Registry
Acts as a secure and trustworthy source for AI agents to discover installed MCP servers on Windows.

Ensures that AI agents can leverage MCP capabilities efficiently.

2. MCP Servers
Windows system functionalities like File System, Windowing, and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) are now available as MCP Servers.

AI agents can interact with these servers to perform context-aware actions.

3. Security Enhancements
Microsoft is addressing security risks associated with MCP, including:

Cross-Prompt Injection (XPIA) – Prevents malicious content from overriding agent instructions.

Authentication Gaps – Strengthens authentication standards to prevent unauthorized access.

Credential Leakage – Ensures AI agents don’t expose sensitive tokens or credentials.

With MCP, Windows 11 is evolving into an agentic OS, meaning AI agents can seamlessly integrate with apps and services to provide smarter automation and assistance. Microsoft is already collaborating with Figma, Anthropic, and Perplexity to integrate MCP into their tools.