Model Context Protocol (MCP) inbound allows you to start automation in your bot processes or automations from third-party AI Assistants. This is done securely through a multi-tenant, user-aware MCP gateway to start Automation Anywhere automations.

With MCP inbound connectivity, Automation Anywhere can receive a request from third-party AI Agents and third-party AI Assistants. Using MCP, an AI Agent can:

  • Get data from third-party systems.
  • Make decisions using company data.
  • Run and discover automations from the Control Room.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have set up the following:

  • Control Room repository permissions.
  • An MCP client: For example, Microsoft Copilot, ENTKB (Enterprise KB), or another MCP-compatible agent that can register an external MCP server and use tools. Each MCP client might support different MCP features, allowing for varying levels of integration with MCP servers. For a comprehensive list of supported MCP clients and latest features, click Feature support matrix.

Procedure

  1. Sign in to the Control Room.
  2. Navigate to AI->Agent connections. From the Agent connections page, you can view the list of agent connections and tools.

    Agent add

  3. To add a new agent connection, you can either:
    • At the top right of the page, click + Add-> Inbound tool.
    • At the right of the page (above the table), click the Create icon.
  4. From the Add inbound tool page, click Browse to search for the automation from a list of folders and files.
  5. Click to select the automation you want and then click Choose.
  6. After you select the automation:
    • If you have the Enterprise license with Process Reasoning Engine (PRE) (see Process Reasoning Engine and generative AI) enabled, then the Tool name and Description fields are automatically populated with content from PRE. Our MCP inbound interactions are powered by our PRE. The PRE has a deep understanding of all the Automation Anywhere automations, processes, API Tasks, and AI Agents. It knows what they are and what they can do. When a user requests to use an MCP inbound tool from a third-party AI assistant, our PRE understands the user's intent and the context of the request. Then, it matches this with the unique automation in the Automation Anywhere repository.
    • If you have the Base license, then the Tool name and Description fields are automatically fetched from the repository.
    • However, if there is no description in the repository, then it will be blank. Both fields are required.
      • Tool name (Required): Rename to something AI-friendly and make it easier for the third-party AI Agent to understand. The name must be unique across all Agent connections. It must be between 1-128 characters and only contain letters (A-Z, a-z), digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-), or dot (.). No spaces or special characters are allowed.
      • Description (Required): Keep it clear and action-oriented.
  7. Click Add.
  8. Your new inbound tool now appears in the Agent connections table with a connection status of Enabled.
    Note:

    If an automation is updated or deleted, then you must update or delete the agent connection manually.

    Supported Input and Output Variable Data Types
    • From MCP Inbound for Task bots and API Tasks:
      • Input: String, Number, Boolean, List, Dictionary, DateTime, and Record
      • Output: String, Number, Boolean, List, Dictionary, DateTime, and Record
    • From MCP Inbound for processes:
      • Input: String, Number, Boolean, List, Dictionary, and DateTime
      • Output: No data types are supported for process output.