What is MCP and how is it different from an API?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) was described as being developed by Anthropic as a way for AI agents to talk directly to other applications, letting you do work (like tax research) inside a chat interface such as Claude rather than a separate app. There are two types: MCPs that Claude natively promotes/supports, and custom connectors that a company can build itself (an example given was a custom MCP built for a tax research platform, plus a video-generation MCP called Hicksfield used to animate a logo directly through Claude).