Connector
- Standard term
A connector links an AI product to another service, such as your email, calendar, or documents, so the AI can read data or take actions there within the permissions you grant.
You set one up by signing in to the other service and approving permissions, called “scopes,” such as "read your calendar." The service then hands the AI product a token, a pass that carries those scopes.
The connector then offers the AI a few tools, like listing this week's events. A tool works only where the token's scopes, the actions the connector's vendor built, and any rules your workplace sets on your account all allow it.
Where you’ll meet it
You connect your work email to an assistant so it can draft replies for you to send. The sign-in screen asks to "read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email," with no draft-only choice on it.
What to do
Before approving, look in the assistant's settings or help pages for a narrower version, such as read-only. If none exists, either accept that it could send and delete or keep pasting emails into a chat.
Easy to mix up
MCP is a shared format underneath many connectors, so one tool can plug into many AI apps. The connector is what you switch on in the AI product's settings, one for each service.
Check yourself
Your assistant's calendar connector can add and cancel events, and you approved everything it asked for. Then you told the assistant in chat to only read your calendar. An invite's description asks it to cancel your Friday meetings. What stands in the way?
Go deeperThe service sets the permission choices and controls how long access lasts
Most connectors sign in through OAuth, a standard way for one service to grant another limited access without sharing your password. The token from sign-in usually expires within hours, but the service often also issues a refresh token, which lets the connector get new ones for months without asking you again.
The choices on the sign-in screen come from the service's own list of scopes, and the AI product can only pick from it. Some services offer narrow scopes and others only broad ones, which is why a draft-only choice is often missing.
Disconnecting inside the AI product may leave its tokens valid at the service until they expire. Removing the product from the service's own list of connected apps, in your account's security settings, cancels them there.