Microsoft OData for AI

Ask an assistant about live business data — customers, orders, projects — and get answers from the OData APIs you already run. Microsoft OData for AI connects that assistant through Model Context Protocol 2.0. It looks up a record, filters a list, follows a relationship, and makes a change, without anyone pasting a spreadsheet into the chat. The assistant is steered toward the right call the first time. It spends tokens on the question, not on chewing through $metadata.

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What you can ask

Once it is connected, questions like these go against your data:

• Tell me about customer ALFKI.
• When was the last order for that account?
• Find customers who have not created a new project in 45 days.
• Give me ten non-obvious insights about this account.
• Who are the German customers, and what are they waiting on?

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How the system works

An OData MCP catalog is built from the service $metadata. That catalog is what the assistant sees: named tools (list_customers, get_order, action_order_ship), compact type cards, and a short list of rules (parameter names omit $, prefer named tools, and so on). The OData API itself stays OData HTTP. MCP is how the assistant talks. Two products share that catalog idea. Local MCP reads an ordinary OData v4 service — a public sample, Microsoft Graph, a vendor ERP — and builds the catalog on your box. The service stays OData HTTP. Remote MCP is what you offer your customers. They stay in their harness, pointed at your /mcp URL, and ask about their data on your API. Microsoft.OData.Mcp.Core is the shared catalog. Microsoft.OData.Mcp.Authentication is outbound OAuth for Local MCP.

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