--- title: "MCP Server: An Introduction and Demo" url: "https://atlan.com/demos/mcp-introduction/" excerpt: "Automate data documentation with Atlan's MCP Server, transforming AI into a true agent that enhances productivity and simplifies governance." description: "Explore how Atlan's MCP Server turns AI assistants like Claude into true agents that interact with Atlan. The demo shows how MCP automates glossary creation, metadata updates, and governance tasks directly from natural language prompts. This unlocks new productivity and makes AI assistants enterprise-ready" format: "Video" duration: "PT2M53S" video: "https://videos.ctfassets.net/nwa1c00rtgxb/3H82P1c8wLSrSDhJYDUTSR/4acebad2873c968318f480f5d77a16e6/Introducing_the_Atlan_MCP_Server.mp4" thumbnail: "https://images.ctfassets.net/nwa1c00rtgxb/4XVWdTrWrBWXsYLOJ1vj74/f73dbee689f5e0929ca5696b74a69c80/mcp-server-an-introduction-and-demo.webp" content_purpose: ["Product Overview"] target_persona: ["General", "IT Administrator", "Data Scientist"] journey_stage: ["S2 - Discovery", "C1 - Onboarding", "C3 - Adoption"] use_case_context: ["Training"] product: ["Context For AI - MCP"] published: "2025-09-23" updated: "2026-06-08" content_type: "video transcript" transcript_source: "sheet-chaptered" --- > Atlan is hosting Context Conference, bringing together the leaders and builders at the frontier of giving AI the context it needs to understand their business. It runs online on October 28, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM ET. Atlan co-founder Prukalpa Sankar opens and closes the day. Leaders from AstraZeneca, BNY and Verizon share why they invest in context and what they get from it. Registrants get early access to The AI Context Gap, a new study from MIT Technology Review Insights. Register: https://atlan.com/context-conference/ # MCP Server: An Introduction and Demo Transcript of the video at https://atlan.com/demos/mcp-introduction/. Each heading is the time (mm:ss) that part starts. ## 00:00 - What an MCP server actually does During my demo, I'm gonna be using Claudes, but I think we first need to level set with what the heck is an MCP server. I think of Claude like a really smart assistant on its own. It knows a lot, but doesn't automatically know how to work with your systems like Atlan. An MCP server is the universal adapter that connects Claude to those systems. That means instead of me manually hunting for information or updating assets in Atlan. I can just ask my assistant to do it. The MCP server makes Claude talk to Atlan safely and reliably. In short, MCP servers turn AI from just answering questions into a true agent that helps me be more productive. Let's hop in and see how this can help us. We have a confluence base called the Customer Value Handbook here, and in there we have a lot of unstructured information spread across multiple pages. So I'd like to turn this into a glossary in Atlan. ## 01:00 - Asking Claude to build a glossary from Confluence I asked Claude, Hey, can you go to Confluence and summarize what you found? Claude starts searching vigorously to gain the context that it needs to build the Atlan glossary. Then it summarizes the results, so I know exactly what it found. You know what? I wanna use this to build the glossary. So next I do a little prompt engineering. I ask it to create categories and terms in the Glossary Customer success Handbook, it lists out all the steps that it'll take to perform these actions. Then ask, Hey, are you good with this? Which I gladly say yes as I eat my next donut. Funny enough, I forgot to create the glossary for this demo. Claude sees that and it decided to create it for me already correcting my mistake. I then go on to form all of the categories and terms. Once done, it provides a wonderful summary of what happened. We see it created 45 different terms in various categories for me, but the real test is, let's check out Atlan to see if it worked. ## 02:00 - Checking the results and other use cases Right there in the top left, I see my customer success glossary and all of the categories and terms underneath, each with a description and a draft status certificate, as I told Claude to do with an MCP server, documenting your data is no longer as chore. It's as simple as asking Claude, and this is just the beginning. For example, you could ask the AI assistant to spin up an industry specific glossary template if you're just starting your governance journey or have a draft documentation for a brand new database. Ultimately, we're most excited to see the creative use cases our customers come up with. Atlan MCP server unlocks a whole new way to work, turning an AI assistant or agent into a true teammate that helps you get real work done faster.