What is MCP (Model Context Protocol) for deal teams?
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the open standard for connecting AI assistants like Claude and Microsoft Copilot to tools and data sources. For a deal firm, an MCP server in front of the firm's verified deal memory means the assistants bankers already use can answer deal and relationship questions from sourced firm knowledge, with the firm's permissions enforced and every access logged. Arvya's MCP access is in development.
Deal teams are already living in AI assistants, but those assistants only know what is pasted into the chat. MCP is the plumbing that fixes this: a standard way for an assistant to query a firm's systems directly, so the answer to what is our history with this sponsor comes from the firm's own record instead of a banker's memory.
What the assistant connects to matters more than the connection. Pointing an assistant at a raw CRM full of blank and stale fields produces confident answers from bad data. Pointing it at verified deal memory, where every fact carries its source and date, means the answer arrives with its citations.
The governance layer is what makes this viable at a financial firm: the MCP server enforces the firm's existing permissions, so an assistant can only surface what its user is allowed to see, and every query is logged for audit. Answers inform the human; actions still go through approval.