Creative

What an AI connector is, and why people call it MCP

An AI connector gives your assistant live access to a business tool so it can read and act without exports. What the term means, what MCP has to do with it, and the question to ask first.

An AI connector is an integration that gives an AI assistant live, authenticated access to a specific piece of business software, so the assistant can read data from and take actions inside that tool without you exporting files or leaving the chat. Most current implementations use MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard for exposing a tool's capabilities to an AI client.

Why does everyone say MCP instead of connector?

No good reason. Neville Medhora, who runs Copywriting Course, renamed it mid-interview: "MCP is like — I would just call it a connector, right?" He is describing the same thing the protocol describes, in the word a buyer would actually use.

What it does not supply

The question. This is the distinction that decides whether a connector earns its place or becomes novelty, and it is worth knowing before you connect anything.

Medhora connected his email platform, with roughly 100,000 subscribers behind it, and stopped using it within two weeks — because "it's actually easier to just click the report than to ask ChatGPT, then it talks to the MCP, and then it finally comes back."

The one question to write down first

Before connecting a tool, write down the question you want answered that the tool's own interface cannot answer today.

If it is "show me my open rate," the connector loses to the existing report and you will stop using it. If it is "cross-reference this against something outside the tool and rank the result," the connector earns its keep. That is exactly the question that eventually worked on Medhora's list.

Platform options are covered in the guide to AI connector platforms.

Where this comes from

S2E1: AI should have killed his career. He's making $1M a year instead — the full interview with Neville Medhora. Listen or watch: YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

S2E1: AI should have killed his career. He's making $1M a year instead

Swipe File owner and 20-year copywriter Neville Medhora on how AI killed his main business, made a dormant side project his primary revenue, and why he runs it all on a $20 ChatGPT subscription.

A copywriter's most valuable AI use is images, not words

Neville Medhora writes for a living and does not use AI to write. He uses it for the part of his job that was always hardest — and has a specific method for not getting generic output.

Editing an AI first draft produces worse work than starting cold

Neville Medhora finds that editing AI output produces a different and lesser piece than writing from scratch — because the draft anchors the structure before he has had his own idea.

Did AI kill SEO for small publishers?

Neville Medhora ranked number one for a term and watched the traffic and the course sales that depended on it decline. What actually changed, and what still works.