MCP: What API providers need to know

Bill Doerrfeld | December 2, 2025

My keynote from Platform Summit 2025 is now live.


Excited to share my talk from Nordic APIs' Platform Summit 2025 — MCP: What API Providers Need to Know.


As the opening talk of the event, I wanted to address the elephant in the room head-on: MCP.


Model Context Protocol (MCP) was on everyone's radar throughout 2025, and for good reason. It has quickly emerged as a universal connector for AI, giving agents a consistent way to interface with APIs.


In this 28-minute talk, I cover the rise of agents and why context matters, and then look at what MCP is, what it can be used for, and walk through examples of MCP servers and tools now appearing in the market.


I also share early best practices we observed in 2025 — like why you shouldn't wrap an API one-to-one, why natural language naming matters, and where security risks are already showing up.


This is by no means exhaustive, and the video was recorded in October and things have even progressed since then! But I hope it gives a good overview of what API-first-minded architects should consider with MCP.


You can also check out all the other great sessions from Platform Summit 2025 in this playlist.

By Bill Doerrfeld February 28, 2026
While hardware usually gets the spotlight in physical AI, the real differentiator won't be hardware. It'll be the models.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 27, 2026
In the latest DirectorPlus, Workato's CTO explains how MCP-enabled integration catalyzed internal AI usage and ROI.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 18, 2026
My latest on InfoWorld reviews MCP servers from 5 major cloud providers
By Bill Doerrfeld February 18, 2026
How are organizations actually using agentic knowledge bases in practice? My article for The New Stack looks at six emerging patterns.
eBPF in Production Report
By Bill Doerrfeld February 12, 2026
My report for the eBPF Foundation explores enterprise eBPF case studies, production deployments, and real business outcomes across cloud-native environments.
Close-up of whole bean coffee Bottomless
By Bill Doerrfeld February 10, 2026
Longtime Bottomless user sharing why I love automated coffee delivery triggered by a smart scale, plus a referral link for a free first bag.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 5, 2026
MCP servers can quickly drain context windows without guardrails. Thankfully, there are ways around this, say the experts.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 4, 2026
It may seem like AI agents are suddenly doing everything across industries. But in reality, the pace of agentic AI is moving carefully, and very deliberately, in highly regulated environments like finance and banking.
By Bill Doerrfeld February 3, 2026
My latest feature for InfoWorld explores when it makes sense to scrape public web sources, and when official API integrations are the better choice for external data.
By Bill Doerrfeld January 30, 2026
What does it mean to go nano with your software updates — to "carve with a scalpel" instead of swinging a hammer? For my latest DirectorPlus piece, I caught up with Chainguard VP Dustin Kirkland to dig into that idea.