Usercentrics acquires MCP Manager to govern AI data access through Model Context Protocol, extending consent management into agentic workflows as EU AI Act enforcement begins.
Usercentrics announced on January 14, 2026, it acquired MCP Manager, a specialized governance platform for Model Context Protocol, extending privacy consent frameworks into AI-driven workflows as organizations deploy autonomous agents that access customer data without traditional guardrails.
The Munich-based consent management platform announced on January 14, 2026, it acquired the startup focused exclusively on governing how AI systems access business data through MCP, the technical standard launched by Anthropic in November 2024. According to Usercentrics, the acquisition positions the company as the first major global leader in data privacy to extend consent and data guardrails into AI-driven workflows.
The deal addresses a fundamental shift in how customer data moves through business systems. Consumer information no longer flows only into websites and applications—it increasingly flows into AI agents that access business systems, retrieve information, make decisions, and shape customer experiences without the consent mechanisms built for traditional digital channels.
Usercentrics processes more than 7 billion consents monthly across over 2 million websites and applications, the company announced in October 2025. The platform surpassed €100 million in annual recurring revenue as 82% of people worldwide gained protection under privacy regulations. CEO Donna Dror stated the milestone represents "proof that the internet can change, and that we are changing it together."
Model Context Protocol emerged rapidly as infrastructure standard throughout 2025. Google released an open-source MCP server for its Ads API on October 7, 2025, enabling AI applications to query advertising campaigns through natural language. Microsoft launched its Clarity MCP server on June 4, 2025, for web analytics queries. Google Analytics released its MCP server on July 22, 2025.
The protocol functions as a standardized connection framework between large language models and external data sources. "MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs," according to documentation from MCP Manager. The protocol architecture operates through a client-server model where host applications maintain connections to multiple servers.
MCP servers enable AI models to connect to and interact with internal and external digital resources, including applications, databases, services, and systems. These connections allow AIs to complete tasks and processes across a range of systems while linking data and context from disparate resources together. At the time of writing, more than 5,500 publicly published MCP servers exist, according to MCP Manager. This count includes only publicly published servers, not those created by organizations for internal use.
But while MCP enables connectivity, it does not inherently enforce consent, policies, or explainability. Organizations face scenarios like AI agents accessing CRM data without consent checks or teams lacking an overview of AI decisions for regulators. The gap between connectivity and governance creates compliance risks as AI systems begin touching real customer data.
MCP Manager addresses this gap by offering a centralized control plane to monitor and enforce policies across MCP servers. According to the announcement, the platform provides visibility and control needed to deploy AI responsibly and in alignment with user expectations. The system offers deployment, security features, observability capabilities, and team provisioning features that the protocol doesn't inherently offer.
Regulators, including those enforcing the EU AI Act, are demanding governance, audit logs, and transparency from organizations deploying AI systems. The AI Act entered into force on August 1, 2024, establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for trustworthy AI development across European markets. Transparency obligations under Article 50 become applicable from August 2, 2026.
The European Commission opened consultation on September 4, 2025, to develop guidelines and a Code of Practice addressing transparency requirements for AI systems, including detecting and labeling AI-generated content. The Commission seeks input on technical standards and ongoing standardization activities relevant to Article 50 implementation.
Most usage of MCP today supports internal workflows. However, as MCP Apps mature, brands can now offer customer-facing AI interactions that allow customers to ask questions and take actions through AI instead of navigating a website or app. This is the gap MCP Manager was built to address, using MCP as the natural control point for enforcing how AI systems access data.
"Whether AI is used internally or exposed to customers, the requirement is the same: personal and consumer data cannot flow into models without clear consent, governance, and auditability," according to the Usercentrics announcement.
The acquisition timing coincides with accelerating AI agent adoption across marketing operations. McKinsey analysis published in July 2025 identified agentic AI as the most significant emerging trend for marketing organizations, with $1.1 billion in equity investment flowing into the technology during 2024. Job postings related to agentic AI increased 985% from 2023 to 2024, according to McKinsey's Technology Trends Outlook 2025.
Yahoo DSP integrated agentic AI capabilities directly into its demand-side platform for autonomous campaign operations in January 2026. Amazon launched its Ads Agent on November 11, 2025, automating campaign management tasks across Amazon Marketing Cloud and DSP platforms through natural language instructions. LiveRamp introduced agentic orchestration on October 1, 2025, enabling autonomous AI agents to access its identity resolution and audience activation platform.
Usercentrics has built its platform around a principle that companies should only use data in ways people understand and explicitly consent to. The company operates in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. The General Data Protection Regulation in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act in the United States have forced fundamental changes in how organizations collect and process personal data.
The company's approach, termed "Privacy-Led Marketing," positions privacy compliance not as a regulatory burden but as a competitive advantage. Research published in July 2025 found that 95% of customers will not purchase from companies that fail to safeguard their data. The same study revealed that only 23% of consumers fully understand how companies use their personal data.
Technical implementation has become increasingly sophisticated. Google integrated Tag Diagnostics into the Analytics consent settings hub in June 2025, providing website operators with real-time visibility into consent signal transmission. The German court ruling on cookie consent in March 2025 emphasized that personal data processing for commercial purposes requires either explicit consent or compelling legitimate interests that do not override user privacy rights.
Usercentrics maintains partnerships with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. These relationships enable integration with major advertising and analytics platforms that dominate digital marketing infrastructure. The company established a North American headquarters in New York, expanding operations beyond its European base.
The consent management sector has grown increasingly competitive. LiveRamp acquired consent management platform Faktor in 2023, rebranding it as Privacy Manager following full integration. The acquisition demonstrated how established data infrastructure companies view consent management as critical to future operations.
MCP Manager offers three core capabilities for organizations deploying AI systems. The platform provides deployment services that enable teams to provision MCP servers with clicks rather than code, saving engineering hours typically required for manual setup. The gateway infrastructure supports multiple server deployments, identity management, and access controls that determine which teams can connect to specific data sources.
Observability features deliver comprehensive logging, real-time reporting, and custom alerts across all MCP-based activity. The system captures verbose, fully traceable audit logs that maintain regulatory compliance while improving response times to security incidents. This addresses a fundamental limitation in MCP, which doesn't provide insightful logs out of the gate.
Security guardrails enforce granular access and permission controls, runtime guardrails, and data protection that enable organizations to use MCP servers while reducing risks of malicious attacks, security breaches, and data leaks. Research published in July 2025 revealed significant security vulnerabilities in Model Context Protocol implementations that could compromise marketing technology platforms and expose sensitive advertiser data.
According to security analysis shared by machine learning engineer Akshay Pachaar on July 20, 2025, "MCP security is completely broken" due to fundamental weaknesses in how the protocol handles tool interactions. The security concerns center on tool poisoning attacks that exploit how MCP servers communicate with client applications.
The platform addresses specific use cases that have emerged as MCP adoption accelerates. Context-aware process automation enables AIs to dynamically orchestrate complex, multi-step workflows that follow the same steps each time but have too much variation and nuance to automate with rule-based automation. Decision support systems allow AIs to traverse various internal and external data sources to provide answers to precise queries and prompts.
Data integration and knowledge management capabilities enable organizations to connect LLMs to internal knowledge bases, third-party support portals, documentation, and other resources. This provides teams with direct support assistants that are more effective than existing built-in support chatbots, which typically can only answer a narrow range of queries using preset decision trees.
Remote MCP servers provide the best proxy for overall adoption patterns, according to MCP Manager. Remote servers are deployed by large SaaS companies like Atlassian, Figma, and Asana. These servers are harder to launch and maintain than local servers but easier for end users, which is why larger organizations typically choose remote servers.
Since May 2025, remote MCP servers increased nearly 4x. These servers require substantial investment from large brands because customers want them. Companies often start by deploying local or workstation MCP servers because they're easier to build, only later updating to remote servers. Figma recently made this transition.
Analysis of the 20 most searched-for MCP servers shows they generate 180,000+ monthly searches. Among them, 80% provide remote MCP servers, showing a strong preference for this deployment model. Playwright MCP leads with 35,000 monthly searches, followed by Figma MCP at 23,000 and GitHub MCP at 17,000.
Deploying a remote MCP server takes more effort and confidence in customer demand than deploying a local one. The growth of remote MCP servers serves as a strong proxy for MCP's overall value and a leading indicator of its broader adoption.
Adverity debuted an AI-powered intelligence layer in September 2025 built on Model Context Protocol technology, introducing Intelligent Agents that automate specific workflows. The first implementation was an MMM Agent for Google Meridian, fully automating the time-consuming process of preparing data for marketing mix modeling.
The advertising technology industry launched Ad Context Protocol on October 15, 2025, built on Anthropic's Model Context Protocol to provide a unified communication layer for managing campaigns across different ad tech systems. However, industry debate emerged about whether new protocols adequately address fundamental transparency concerns before enabling widespread automation.
The acquisition extends Usercentrics' role beyond traditional consent management into the foundation that governs how data is activated, used, and retained throughout its lifecycle. In an AI-driven world, consent is no longer a one-time permission at the moment of collection. It becomes the foundation that governs how data is activated across AI-driven workflows.
Organizations now need practical ways to apply these principles at the point where AI systems access and use data. The combination of MCP Manager's governance capabilities with Usercentrics' Privacy-Led Marketing Suite creates a unified solution for managing consent, preferences, and data governance across websites, apps, internal systems, and consumer-facing AI agents.
Trust, consent, and data governance create a growth advantage, according to both companies. AI systems that prevent sensitive data from reaching models by default give teams the confidence to scale, meet regulatory expectations, and fully realize AI's value.
As businesses adopt AI, they use MCP to connect agents and models to business systems containing consumer and business data. MCP Apps allow brands to offer customer-facing AI interactions where customers ask questions and take actions through AI instead of navigating websites or apps. This shift requires consent and data guardrails to operate directly where AI meets data.
Technical guide frameworks for building functional AI marketing agents emerged from developer discussions, addressing persistent challenges in creating autonomous marketing automation systems. The methodology addresses increasing enterprise demand for marketing automation as $1.1 billion in equity investment flowed into agentic AI in 2024.
The coordinated approach reflects broader industry recognition that AI governance represents a compliance requirement rather than an optional enhancement. Regulators, consumers, and enterprise procurement teams expect the same level of protection for AI-driven interactions as they do on websites and apps. Organizations lacking infrastructure expertise to govern AI data flows safely face mounting pressure as AI systems become embedded in customer experiences.
Who: Usercentrics, the Munich-based consent management platform processing more than 7 billion consents monthly across 2 million websites, acquired MCP Manager, a specialized governance platform for Model Context Protocol developed by engineers with expertise in AI infrastructure.
What: The acquisition extends privacy consent frameworks into AI-driven workflows by providing centralized governance, monitoring, and security controls for how AI systems access customer and business data through Model Context Protocol connections. MCP Manager offers deployment capabilities, observability features with comprehensive audit logs, and security guardrails that enforce granular access controls across AI agent interactions with business systems.
When: Usercentrics announced the acquisition on January 14, 2026, as AI Act enforcement obligations entered application across the European Union in August 2025, with transparency requirements under Article 50 becoming applicable from August 2026.
Where: The governance platform operates globally but addresses requirements emerging primarily from European regulatory frameworks, including the EU AI Act and GDPR, as 82% of people worldwide gain protection under privacy regulations. Organizations deploying AI systems across European markets face mounting pressure to demonstrate consent, audit logs, and transparency regardless of geographic location.
Why: The acquisition addresses fundamental gaps in AI governance as organizations deploy autonomous agents that access customer data through MCP connections without the consent mechanisms built for traditional digital channels. Regulators demand governance infrastructure, audit logs, and transparency from AI systems, while consumers expect the same level of protection for AI-driven interactions as they receive on websites and applications. AI governance has shifted from optional enhancement to compliance requirement as Model Context Protocol adoption accelerates across advertising platforms, analytics systems, and marketing automation tools throughout 2025.
