Enterprise Incumbents Form a Counter-Alliance to MCP: Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Snowflake, ServiceNow Back a Shared Agent Backend Protocol

Crypto Briefing (citing The Information)·high signal

Per The Information, five enterprise giants agreed to support a common AI backend-software protocol framed explicitly as a counter to Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), which has become the de facto tool-connection standard over 18 months. The five collectively own most enterprise data, workflows, and cloud infrastructure — giving customers a credible alternative to building agent stacks on a competitor's standard. Notably, the same companies also co-participate in the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation, cooperating on open standards while knife-fighting on the protocol layer.