MCP for Research: How to Connect AI to Research Tools

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a standard that allows AI agents to use external tools for tasks like academic research discovery. It presents an evolution from manual searching and brittle scripted automation to a more flexible system. Using MCP, an AI can orchestrate multiple tools through natural language requests to find papers, code, and models across platforms like arXiv and GitHub. This method provides a higher level of abstraction for research, and the post includes instructions for setting up a "Research Tracker" tool using this protocol.