Agent Skills vs MCP: What’s the difference?

🤝 Want your team maximizing Claude? I run 1:1 and team AI workshops for companies doing $1M+ per year: https://aibuilder.academy/yt/6wdvSH61xGw Skills and MCP give us ways to customize agents with tools and context. However, each has its own use cases. Here, I break down the key difference between these technologies and when to use them. References [1] https://llm-stats.com/benchmarks/gpqa [2] https://llm-stats.com/benchmarks/swe-bench-verified [3] https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro [4] https://github.com/cyanheads/model-context-protocol-resources/blob/main/guides/mcp-client-development-guide.md#1-introduction-to-mcp-clients [5] https://agentskills.io/what-are-skills [6] https://agentskills.io/specification#progressive-disclosure [7] https://youtu.be/CEvIs9y1uog?si=6HIxFYl0VNVoHmVE Intro - 0:00 AI Models Are Getting Smarter - 0:49 Intelligence isn't the (only) bottleneck - 2:05 MCP - 3:42 A Problem with MCP - 6:23 Agent Skills - 7:40 MCP vs Agent Skills - 11:04 MCP and Skill Examples - 14:02 AI Builders Cohort - 14:21 Q&A - 15:15