MCP: the new common language of machines and AIs
TCP/IP allowed machines to talk to each other. MCP allows them to act together. With the rise of AI agents, organizations face a new challenge: coordinating capabilities, actions and entire systems — without friction, without Excel, without email. That's exactly what MCP makes possible for managing extra-financial data.
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Major technological revolutions are never simple shocks: they are rewrites. The history of computing provides a perfect illustration of this.
Fifty years ago, TCP/IP created the modern Internet by allowing heterogeneous machines to communicate with each other. Today, with the rise of generative AI, a new question is emerging:
How to make not only machines... but also capabilities, intelligent agents, distributed systems, applications and fragmented data interact?
That's exactly what MCP offers — the Model Context Protocol: A common language to orchestrate, connect, and activate multiple intelligences.
From TCP/IP to MCP: a change of scale
TCP/IP standardized packet transmission. The APIs then standardized the flow of data.
MCP is now standardizing the circulation of intentions and actions.
Where an API imposes a fixed format, an endpoint, a strict contract, MCP defines “resources”, “tools”, “prompts”: capabilities declared by a service, that an agent can invoke dynamically, intelligently, and contextualized.
In other words, MCP does not make systems “talk”: it makes them actionable.
It is a protocol designed for the era of autonomous agents, modularity, and human-machine collaboration. And above all, a protocol capable of evolving organically as needed.
The “Reshuffle” framework: when systems become conversational
In his book Reshuffle, Sangeet Paul Choudary describes a world where businesses are reorganized around three principles:
1. Modularity
Organizations should think of themselves as an assembly of interchangeable components. MCP puts this into practice: a service exposes its capabilities as a plug and play module that an agent can call upon request.
2. Capabilities instead of data
“What's important is no longer the information, it's what you can do with it.” It's one of Reshuffle's mantras.
MCP turns exactly this philosophy into architecture: The agent does not receive data; he has the ability to ask questions, to act on a system, to perform a function.
3. Ongoing dialogue between men, machines and agents
Reshuffle insists on the need to rethink interactions. Businesses need to become “conversational systems.”
MCP is the layer that makes this future possible: a protocol where agents, humans, and software interact naturally — without friction, without artisanal translation, without tinkered bridges.
Why does MCP matter to businesses?
Because it responds to three recurring pains:
1. Software fragmentation
ERP, CRM, ESG tools, data warehouse, HRIS, internal tools...
Today, very few businesses really know how to orchestrate all of this.
2. Heavy and expensive integrations
Each connector costs time, money, and maintenance.
3. Email reporting — the worst technology still widely used
ESG, financial, compliance, supply chain, and quality reporting still generally ends with:
- PDFs sent by email,
- divergent Excel files,
- manual re-entries,
- information losses.
Zero operational continuity, zero auditability, zero reliability.
MCP changes this by allowing an agent-agent dialogue, driven by business intentions.
MCP + Harnest: a very concrete vision
At ASCEND Tech, our belief is simple: the future of reporting is the interaction between agents.
Tomorrow a Harnest agent can:
- automatically request data,
- validate its consistency,
- contextualize it in a taxonomy,
- transcribe it into a repository (CSRD, VSME, ESG2, EDCI, ISSB...),
- trigger an action in another system,
- or ask a supplier via an MCP channel.
No need for excel, email, manual transfers, copy and paste. We are moving from “by hand” reporting to a living, coherent, cohesive and automated architecture.
This resonates perfectly with Reshuffle's perspective: to transform the business into a network of intelligent capabilities, orchestrated by agents rather than humans exhausted by repetitive tasks.
📣 We are looking for pilot companies
We are currently looking for companies, banks or insurers who want to:
- conduct a POC/POV MCP with us,
- test agent-agent interoperability,
- delete email reports,
- transform their reporting obligations into an automated, reliable and fluid conversation,
- and pave the way for the post-Excel/Post-PDF era.
If you want to be among the first to explore this sovereign, intelligent and operational future, we would love to discuss it with you.