MCP Weekly: Cloud Standardization, Security Platforms, and $200M Agent Investment

Welcome to the latest installment of the MCP Weekly digest, covering the major developments related to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) from November 27th through December 4th! Agents hit the cloud-architecture layer this week, pushing security to the top of the stack.

TL;DR

AI infrastructure took a major step forward this week as MCP became the backbone for how large enterprises build and secure agent-driven systems.The headline news is AWS solidifying its commitment by launching the AWS MCP Server, IAM-secured endpoint for over 15,000 APIs and the API Gateway MCP Proxy, enabling all existing REST APIs to be instantly agent-accessible.

Simultaneously, the new reality of autonomous agents executing sensitive commands drove a surge in the dedicated AI Action Security market, with Netskope and Salt Security launching critical visibility and protection capabilities, while Helmet Security emerged from stealth with $9M in funding. Finally, Snowflake and Anthropic announced a $200 million strategic partnership to deploy governed, multi-step AI agents (Claude 4.5) across regulated industries, demonstrating the massive capital flowing into secure, agent-powered data operations.

Major Updates of the Week

AWS Standardizes the Cloud with Unified MCP Architecture

AWS delivered three critical services this week, standardizing the deployment, tool access, and governance of agentic workloads on the world’s leading cloud platform.

In a key supporting update, the AWS Knowledge MCP Server also added topic-based search on November 26, 2025, which improves agent accuracy by allowing queries to target specific documentation domains (e.g., Troubleshooting, AWS CDK) to reduce response noise.

The Agent Security Sector Takes Off

The rapid adoption of MCP has confirmed a new threat vector, driving the immediate need for a dedicated security layer. This week saw major platform-level announcements and significant funding for the new Agent Security market.

• Netskope Model Context Protocol (MCP) Security: Netskope added breakthrough capabilities to its Netskope One platform to secure MCP communications. This provides full visibility over MCP servers and clients, extends its Cloud Confidence Index (CCI) for risk-scoring MCP servers, and enforces granular, context-based policies and real-time Data Leak Prevention (DLP) to protect sensitive data flowing through agent workflows.
• Salt Security and AWS WAF Integration: Salt Security, the API security leader, extended its behavioral threat protection to the MCP layer. Using its MCP Finder technology to discover unknown servers, Salt now integrates with AWS WAF to automatically detect and block external misuse and abuse of MCP servers by malicious AI agents and attackers, applying intent-based behavioral analysis to stop threats traditional tools miss.
• Helmet Security Funding: Helmet Security emerged from stealth with $9 million in funding, positioning itself as the first end-to-end security platform for the agent lifecycle. The company addresses the 17,000+ unmonitored MCP servers in the enterprise by providing instant Discovery, Monitoring, and Management through structured access policies, giving CISOs control without hindering developer speed.

Massive Enterprise Tooling and Data Scale

Major software vendors and data platforms reinforced MCP as the protocol for large-scale, governed AI operations.

My Thoughts

Last week we celebrated MCP’s one-year anniversary, and it made me realize how quickly things are changing. MCP started as a simple way for models to use tools, but it’s turning into the core layer that lets agents take real action safely. Over the next year, I think MCP will shape how teams design, approve, and trust AI-driven work.

Looking ahead, the biggest changes won’t just come from new tools but they’ll come from how people actually use MCP day-to-day. We’ll see clearer workflows, shared playbooks, and easier ways to track what agents are doing. The future of AI feels less chaotic now, because MCP is becoming the structure that holds it all together.