How to Connect Your Apps to an AI Agent (Every Working Path)

How to Connect Your Apps to an AI Agent (Every Working Path)

The three ways to connect Gmail, Slack, Notion, GitHub and more to an AI: built-in connectors, MCP servers, or an agent with integrations built in.

How to Connect Your Apps to an AI Agent (Every Working Path)

The 3 ways to connect an app to an AI

  1. Built-in connectors. Claude has a Connectors directory (Customize → Connectors) and ChatGPT has connected apps (Settings → Apps). One-click OAuth, no technical work. The catch: each AI only offers the apps in its own store, and the connection works only inside that AI.
  2. MCP servers. The open standard behind those connectors. You can attach an MCP server to Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any MCP client yourself, which unlocks apps not in anyone's store, but you handle the install, tokens and config. What MCP is, in plain English.
  3. An agent with integrations built in. Instead of connecting apps per AI tool, you connect them once to a workspace where the agent already knows how to use them. That is the model we built Krater on: connect Gmail or Slack once, and the agent suggests the right tool when your task calls for it.

Guide for your app

Which path should you pick?

Use the built-in connectors if your app is in Claude's or ChatGPT's directory and you live in that one tool. Use MCP servers if you are technical and want an app nobody offers natively. Use an all-in-one agent if you want several apps connected once and usable across models, or if the per-tool config is the part you keep putting off.