MCP vs API Explained: Do We Still Need API After MCP Part ~ 1

Part 1 ~ MCP vs API Explained: Do We Still Need API After MCP In this video Cloud X Berry explains MCP (Model Context Protocol) and APIs in a simple, beginner-friendly way. You ask an AI assistant to find your latest order and email you the tracking details, and it does it. Behind that one sentence, three separate APIs were called in the right order with the right inputs—and nobody wrote that sequence anywhere. That is not the model guessing. It is MCP doing its job, and it did not replace a single one of those APIs. We start with the version every team already has: the developer decides which API to call, when to call it, and in what order, then writes that workflow in code. That works, and it is exactly what APIs were built for. The challenge begins when the instruction arrives as a sentence instead of a button. The AI model understands what the user wants, but it knows nothing about your endpoints, which one should be called first, or what inputs they expect. Hard-coding your entire API documentation into the model is not the answer. From there, we build the concept step by step: What a tool actually is What an MCP server does The difference between tools and resources Then we walk through a real example—a shop with a Customer API, an Orders API, and an Email API—and place an MCP server in front of them without changing a single line of the existing APIs. You'll follow one request from start to finish: How the application discovers available tools How the AI model selects the right tools How those tools ultimately call the same APIs you already have Finally, we cover the two differences that matter most: Who decides the workflow Documentation vs. discovery We also look at what happens when you add a new capability tomorrow and answer the question the entire video is built around: Will MCP replace APIs? Chapters 00:00​ MCP is replacing APIs 00:12​ If APIs already work, why was MCP created? 00:24​ How an application uses APIs today 00:52​ The developer writes the workflow 01:09​ Now the user asks an AI assistant instead 01:21​ What the model does not know 01:42​ Term one: A Tool 02:11​ Term two: An MCP Server 02:40​ Why the model never touches Gmail or GitHub directly 02:52​ The same shop, now with an MCP server 03:16​ One request, start to finish 03:43​ The tools still call your existing APIs 04:04​ Difference one: Who decides the workflow 04:29​ Difference two: Documentation vs. Discovery 04:57​ Adding a new tool tomorrow 05:11​ Will MCP replace APIs? 05:50​ What actually happens on a call 06:20​ The answer and the recap Who this video is for Developers who keep seeing MCP in AI architecture diagrams and want the concept to finally click. Backend engineers who already have working APIs and need to make them usable by AI applications. Anyone who has heard that MCP is replacing APIs and wants to know whether that is actually true. #mcp​ #modelcontextprotocol​ #api​ #ai​ #backend​ ​