MCP Apps: Extending the Frontier — Ido Salomon & Liad Yosef
AI Engineer
6,821 views
Ido Salomon and Liad Yosef, creators of the MCP Apps, return to AIE to explore the development and implementation of this open protocol designed to bring interactive, branded user interfaces directly into AI chat environments, moving beyond the current limitation of text-only responses (0:00 - 1:52).
Core Concepts and Features:
From Text to UI: Instead of walls of text, servers can send interactive UI components (built using web standards) that the host renders as native-like widgets, improving user experience and maintaining brand identity (1:52 - 5:04).
The Protocol Architecture: When a user interacts with a widget, events are sent back to the host via a callback mechanism. The host then manages the agentic loop, allowing the AI to call appropriate tools based on user input (5:04 - 10:10).
The Agentic Web: This approach shifts the way users interact with the internet. Rather than visiting multiple websites/tabs, users can now complete tasks (like planning an event or interacting with specific business services) directly within their personal AI assistant using atomized UI components (10:10 - 13:05).
Evolution and Community:
The project started as MCP UI and has since transitioned into an official open working group under the MCP committee, with support from major industry players like Anthropic and OpenAI (2:29 - 4:26).
Future Developments: The spec is actively evolving to support reusable views, app tools (allowing the chat to initiate actions within the UI), and interoperability with other standards like A2UI and WebMCP (14:29 - 16:19).
Distribution Potential: By leveraging the massive user base of existing AI platforms, MCP Apps provides a powerful new way to distribute software, with the goal of creating a "write once, run anywhere" ecosystem for the next generation of AI-driven web interaction (17:14 - 18:05).
Speaker info:
Liad Yosef
https://x.com/liadyosef
LinkedIn: liadyosef
https://ora.ai
Ido Salomon
https://x.com/idosal1
LinkedIn: ido-salomon
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why we need MCP Apps
1:52 - From walls of text to interactive views
2:29 - MCP UI, created and adopted
4:26 - An open working group in the MCP committee
5:04 - How a tool call becomes an interface
6:31 - Standardizing the flow
8:52 - The architecture: resources and web components
10:10 - Consuming apps through the browser
14:29 - What's still evolving in the spec
16:07 - Interoperability across hosts
17:14 - Write once, reach hundreds of millions
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Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page:
https://ai.engineer/talks/-jY2T2PiJBE...
Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page):
AIE New York, October 12–14 — the first AI Engineer Finance mainstage summit
AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers
AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns
AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney
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4 Comments
MCP Apps: Extending the Frontier — Ido Salomon & Liad Yosef
AI Engineer
6,821 views
Ido Salomon and Liad Yosef, creators of the MCP Apps, return to AIE to explore the development and implementation of this open protocol designed to bring interactive, branded user interfaces directly into AI chat environments, moving beyond the current limitation of text-only responses (0:00 - 1:52).
Core Concepts and Features:
From Text to UI: Instead of walls of text, servers can send interactive UI components (built using web standards) that the host renders as native-like widgets, improving user experience and maintaining brand identity (1:52 - 5:04).
The Protocol Architecture: When a user interacts with a widget, events are sent back to the host via a callback mechanism. The host then manages the agentic loop, allowing the AI to call appropriate tools based on user input (5:04 - 10:10).
The Agentic Web: This approach shifts the way users interact with the internet. Rather than visiting multiple websites/tabs, users can now complete tasks (like planning an event or interacting with specific business services) directly within their personal AI assistant using atomized UI components (10:10 - 13:05).
Evolution and Community:
The project started as MCP UI and has since transitioned into an official open working group under the MCP committee, with support from major industry players like Anthropic and OpenAI (2:29 - 4:26).
Future Developments: The spec is actively evolving to support reusable views, app tools (allowing the chat to initiate actions within the UI), and interoperability with other standards like A2UI and WebMCP (14:29 - 16:19).
Distribution Potential: By leveraging the massive user base of existing AI platforms, MCP Apps provides a powerful new way to distribute software, with the goal of creating a "write once, run anywhere" ecosystem for the next generation of AI-driven web interaction (17:14 - 18:05).
Speaker info:
Liad Yosef
https://x.com/liadyosef
LinkedIn: liadyosef
https://ora.ai
Ido Salomon
https://x.com/idosal1
LinkedIn: ido-salomon
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why we need MCP Apps
1:52 - From walls of text to interactive views
2:29 - MCP UI, created and adopted
4:26 - An open working group in the MCP committee
5:04 - How a tool call becomes an interface
6:31 - Standardizing the flow
8:52 - The architecture: resources and web components
10:10 - Consuming apps through the browser
14:29 - What's still evolving in the spec
16:07 - Interoperability across hosts
17:14 - Write once, reach hundreds of millions
---
Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page:
https://ai.engineer/talks/-jY2T2PiJBE...
Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page):
AIE New York, October 12–14 — the first AI Engineer Finance mainstage summit
AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers
AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns
AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney
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