2026 is the year "talk to your platform" became a supported feature. In June, Salesforce shipped a first-party MCP server for Marketing Cloud Engagement — and this session connects to a real org, live, to show you what that actually means.

We'll start with the protocol: why ten AI tools times ten platforms used to mean a hundred hand-built integrations, and how MCP collapses that into one connector — USB-C for AI. Then we go hands-on. Setup is a single Installed Package you already know how to create, and from there we'll ask an AI assistant to discover what it can do in the org, build a real data extension, and dig into which journey has the highest unsubscribe rate — then flip to the MCE UI and confirm it happened. We'll cover governance the whole way: scopes are your handle, the AI acts as an authenticated user, and you review its work like a junior teammate's.

Then the other Marketing Cloud. MCAE has no MCP server yet — its AI runs through Agentforce today — but the pattern is set. We'll draw the clean line between MCE and MCAE, why score-plus-grade qualification has no MCE equivalent, and what the convergence roadmap really asks of you: not a migration deadline, but your data hygiene and Data Cloud story.

You'll leave with: a working mental model of MCP, a repeatable four-step setup for your own org, a governance approach that uses tools you already have, and a clear read on where MCAE is headed.

Built for both halves of the room — marketers and developers. Bring questions.