The MCP extension unifies Claude with apps like Slack, Canva, and Figma

Anthropic’s Claude is a little more lively today thanks to a new extension for MCP, an open source protocol that allows AI agents to easily access tools and data over the Internet. Users will now be able to interact with apps directly within the Claude chatbot, allowing you to craft and format Slack messages for colleagues and create presentations to clients in Canva without having to switch tabs.

Starting today, Anthropic said tools like Asana, Figma, Slack, and Canva will “open as interactive apps right inside chat.” While users could previously connect tools like Slack and Asana to an AI assistant, doing so means taking back text. The new in-app integration means users can actually interact with the tool and “visually see, explore and improve results, not just read about them,” the company says.

A number of popular tools are already available for use directly in Claude. Anthropic says users can customize Canva collections in real-time, format and preview Slack messages, create interactive charts using Hex or Amplitude, and manage projects using Asana or monday.com. There are also integrations for Figma, Clay and Box, with Salesforce tools such as Data 360, Agentforce and Customer 360 apps “coming soon,” Anthropic said.

Interact — a type of in-app — looks similar to the “mini” apps built inside messaging platforms like Telegram and Discord. The integration signals a shift in how AI platforms like ChatGPT and Cloud are likely to operate in the future, becoming more like operating systems than individual tools, or an “everything app” similar to Tencent’s WeChat in China. ChatGPT has already taken a step forward with this direction With its launch Own application ecosystem last year.

Anthropic credited the Model Context Protocol, or MCP, for the ability to integrate applications into Cloud. The extension, called MCP Apps, allows “any MCP server to provide an interactive interface within any AI-enabled product — not just Cloud,” meaning other interactive application interfaces may soon be on their way to other AI tools.

Operating standards such as MCP are essential for building usable product ecosystems because they avoid the need for companies to develop and maintain many different interfaces. MCP began life at Anthropic in 2024 but has been widely adopted by companies including OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Anthropic Donated to the Linux Foundation Late last year, it set up a new fund – the Agentic AI Foundation – with other tech giants such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, AWS, Block, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare, to “develop open source agentic AI.”