The IntelligenceBank MCP Server connects your AI assistant to your IntelligenceBank platform, so you can search your assets, read their details, download or resize them, upload a file, and run a risk review by asking for it in plain language. It is hosted by IntelligenceBank, there is nothing to install, and everything the assistant does runs as you, with your own permissions.
Table of Contents
What the MCP Server Does
MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems that hold your work. An MCP server publishes a set of tools, and the assistant chooses which to use to answer what you asked. The IntelligenceBank MCP Server publishes tools over your IntelligenceBank platform.
- Hosted, not installed - the server runs on IntelligenceBank infrastructure. You point your AI assistant at a URL. There is no plugin, extension, or download.
- Your platform, your permissions - you sign in to your own IntelligenceBank platform. The assistant sees exactly what you can see, and nothing else.
- Ask, do not browse - there is no folder picker to click through. You describe what you want and the assistant runs the searches, follows the folder tree, and reads the metadata for you.
- Speaks your organization's language - the assistant reads your platform's own module names, filters, and custom fields, so it uses the words your team uses rather than generic ones.
- Built on an open standard - MCP is not a single vendor's plugin format, so the same server can serve any assistant that speaks it. During the beta we enable one AI product at a time, so tell us which one your team uses.
What You Can Ask For
The server publishes ten tools. You never call them by name: you ask for what you want and the assistant picks. They are listed here because most AI assistants show you the tool list, and because they define the boundary of what the assistant can and cannot do on your platform.
| Capability | What it does |
|---|---|
| Understand your platform | Reads your organization name, the signed-in user, your module terminology, your brand colours and fonts, and which optional capabilities your site has switched on. The assistant calls this first so the rest of the conversation uses your names for things. |
| Search and browse | Keyword search, structured filters using your own platform filters and custom fields, file type filters, and folder navigation. It can also find a folder by name, and look up a single asset from the short id at the end of a share link. |
| Read an asset | Full metadata for one asset, including custom fields, ownership and usage terms, dates, and AI tags. Or download the original, a preview image, or a PDF rendering of an office document. |
| Resize or convert an image | Produce a different size, crop, or format of an image, or apply one of your platform's Global Presets. IntelligenceBank does the rendering, so nothing is re-encoded along the way. Every image already carries three ready-made renditions, and the assistant is told to use one of those whenever it will do, because a transformation is a paid render on your platform. |
| Find a person | Resolves a name or email address to an IntelligenceBank user, which is what makes questions like "everything Sam uploaded last month" answerable. It is lookup only: nothing creates, edits, or suspends an account. |
| Upload a file | Sends a file from your AI assistant to IntelligenceBank, ready for a risk review. See Working With Files below for how the bytes travel. |
| Run a risk review | Runs your organization's compliance, legal, and brand checks over an uploaded file, or over a piece of copy with no file behind it, and returns the findings. Requires the Marketing Compliance capability on your site. A file is always the better source, because it also runs the visual rules and places each finding on a page. |
| Renew your session | Signs you back in to IntelligenceBank from inside the conversation when your session lapses, without going back to your assistant's connection settings. |
Requirements
- An active IntelligenceBank account, on a platform that has been enabled for the MCP Server beta.
- An AI assistant or development tool that supports remote MCP servers over HTTP. Tools that only support MCP servers installed on your own machine cannot reach this one.
- Support for OAuth 2.0 sign-in in that assistant. There is no API key to paste: authentication is a browser sign-in to your own platform.
- Permission to add a custom MCP server or connector. Some AI products restrict this by plan, or let a workspace administrator control it centrally.
- Your AI product enabled on our side. IntelligenceBank registers each AI product with our sign-in service before its users can complete a sign-in, so tell us which one you use when you request access. If it is not registered yet, the sign-in stops with an error rather than reaching your platform.
- An internet connection. Every search, download, upload, and review is an online operation.
Connecting Your AI Assistant
Every AI assistant words this differently, and their interfaces change often, so this article gives you the values rather than a click path. Find the place in your assistant where you add a remote MCP server, a custom connector, or an integration, and use these.
| Server URL | https://mcp.intelligencebank.ai/mcp |
| Transport | HTTP. Choose the HTTP or "remote server" option, never the local or command-line one. |
| Authentication | OAuth 2.0. If your assistant asks whether authentication is required, the answer is yes, always. See the warning below. |
| OAuth client ID | Set to use the Client's own published identity (CMID) when configuring the server in Anthropic Claude or Microsoft Copilot. Otherwise set it to use your own Oauth client, and use the client id valuemcp-public-client |
| OAuth client secret | None. Leave it blank. |
| Platform URL | Not part of the connection. You enter it during sign-in instead, which is what tells the server which IntelligenceBank platform you work on. Typically, you will see an action to Connect after you configured the previous fields. |
Signing In and Sessions
| 1Connect | Once the connection details are saved, your assistant shows a Connect, Authorize, or Sign in action on the connection. Click it. Saving the details alone does not sign you in. Some assistants skip this and start the sign-in the first time you ask for something from IntelligenceBank instead. |
| 2Name your platform | A browser window opens on the IntelligenceBank sign-in page and asks for your platform URL, for example yourcompany.intelligencebank.com. |
| 3Sign in | Sign in the way you normally do, single sign-on included. The window returns you to your assistant when it is done. |
| 4Carry on | The connection now shows as connected and the tools work from then on. Nothing else has to be configured, and if the sign-in started from something you asked for, that request is retried for you. |
This is where your platform is chosen. The platform URL you enter during this sign-in is what binds the connection to your IntelligenceBank site, and it is the only place it is ever asked for. Nothing you type in the conversation afterwards can change .
How long a session lasts. Your IntelligenceBank session stays alive for as long as your platform's login timeout allows, between 1 and 120 hours, set by your administrator. When it lapses, the assistant hands you a sign-in link in the conversation and picks up where it left off once you have used it. That renewal signs you back in to the same platform, so you should not need to remove and re-add the connection to recover an expired session, and if your IntelligenceBank browser session is still alive it is usually a single click.
One platform per connection. To work on a different IntelligenceBank platform, remove the connection and add it again, signing in to the other platform when it asks. Switching is a connection-level action, never something the assistant can do mid-conversation.
Working With Files
Uploads go direct. File contents never travel through the conversation. When you upload, your assistant sends the bytes straight to IntelligenceBank's storage, and only a fingerprint of the file passes through the server. Assistants that run code in a sandbox need outbound network access for this. If the sandbox is blocked, the tool tells you the exact address to allow.
Downloads depend on your assistant. When you ask for the file itself, the server fetches it and hands your assistant a reference to read. Some assistants read those references and can then work with the file; others cannot, and will show you the details but not the content.
Reviews take minutes, not seconds. A risk review runs for one to five minutes, which is longer than most AI assistants allow a single step to take. The assistant is told to check back repeatedly rather than wait, so expect a few short pauses before the findings arrive. That is normal and not an error.
Data and Security
- Encrypted in transit - all communication with IntelligenceBank uses TLS.
- Your authentication - sign-in is delegated to your IntelligenceBank platform, including SSO if your organization has it configured. The MCP Server never sees or stores your password.
- Same platform controls - every call is made as you. Your existing permissions, retention policies, and access controls apply exactly as they do in the web application, and a file you upload lands under them too.
- Nothing is warehoused - the server holds your session and nothing else. It does not copy your files or the data returned.
- Your assistant sees what it retrieves - results come back into your AI assistant's conversation, so your AI provider's own data handling terms apply to them. That is worth checking against your organization's policy before you connect a platform holding sensitive material.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI assistants does this work with?
Any assistant that supports remote MCP servers over HTTP and lets you supply an OAuth client ID of your own. Two further things have to be true, and both are on our side rather than yours: we have to have registered that AI product with our sign-in service, and the product has to accept a public OAuth client with no secret. That is why the beta enables one AI product at a time. Tell us which one you use when you request access and we will confirm where it stands. We deliberately do not publish per-product click paths here, because these interfaces change frequently and a screenshot from last month is often wrong this month.
Do I need an API key or a service account?
No. You sign in as yourself, in a browser, on your own platform. There is nothing to generate, paste, or rotate, and no shared credential for your team to look after.
Can the assistant change or delete our assets?
No. The published tools read, search, download, transform images, upload a file, and run a risk review. There is no tool that edits metadata, moves a record, or deletes anything. Everything it can do is also bounded by your own IntelligenceBank permissions.
Why does my assistant say the server needs no authentication?
Because the questions it asks while probing are answered without a credential by design. Discovery has to succeed for the connection to survive, so the server never refuses those. Only a real tool call triggers the sign-in. Set authentication yourself rather than trusting the detection, as described above.
A new capability was announced but my assistant does not show it.
Some AI products cache the list of tools a server publishes, and refresh it on their own schedule, which can be up to a day. Nothing is broken in the meantime and the tools you already have keep working. Disconnecting and reconnecting usually does not shorten the wait.
Nothing is working. What should I check?
- Confirm the server URL is exactly
https://mcp.intelligencebank.ai/mcp, including the path at the end. - Confirm authentication is set to required, not none.
- Confirm the OAuth client ID is
mcp-public-clientwith an empty secret. - Ask the assistant something that needs IntelligenceBank, so the sign-in is actually triggered. A connection that lists tools has not necessarily signed you in.
- Check you can sign in to your platform in a normal browser tab.
- If it still fails, submit a ticket and tell us which AI assistant you are using and what it showed you.
Beta and Early Access
Our IntelligenceBank MCP Server is currently in BETA. Contact us to request early access.
While it is in beta, the set of tools and the way they behave can change between releases, and your feedback shapes what comes next. Tell us what you tried, which AI assistant you used, and what you wanted it to do.
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