Bridging AI and Customer Data Platforms with MCP

With the rise of AI frameworks, AI design patterns, and the multitude of possible applications, the market demands a more elegant way to bring AI models together with the data services to more quickly evolve, reinvent, and maintain. That’s where Model Context Protocol (MCP) comes into play, and Tealium wanted to share with you how it’s possible to integrate MCP with Tealium at the heart of it all. Tealium created an MCP demo app that implements exchanging data between AI systems and Tealium EventStream for collection and AudienceStream’s Moments API for real-time retrieval. Through a structured API implementation, this system recipe enables real-time visitor profile access and event tracking for AI model interactions.

MCP fundamentally reimagines how enterprise data flows between customer touchpoints and AI systems. Traditional CDP implementations may struggle with the real-time demands of conversational AI and emerging channels. This standardized protocol solves some challenges by creating a universal language for AI and customer data systems to communicate bidirectionally, regardless of vendor or implementation details. It’s the TCP/IP for enterprise customer data – a foundational protocol that enables system interoperability. Tealium’s real-time data capability is the other critical component for making a conversational AI experience possible, where AI can reason with vital customer data facts necessary to drive business.

The protocol provides several key advantages:

• Standardized data format ensuring consistency across all customer touchpoints
• Simplified integration with Tealium’s EventStream for data collection
• Seamless access to AudienceStream’s unified customer profiles
• Real-time data availability for immediate personalization
• Reduced engineering overhead for new digital experience integrations

Strategic Significance for Omnichannel Data Orchestration

MCP integration represents a natural addition to Tealium’s strategic position as an omnichannel data orchestration platform. Using MCP for AI-CDP interaction, Tealium acts as a central nervous system for customer-facing AI implementations across the enterprise technology stack.

Unified Data Exchange Protocol for the AI Ecosystem

The MCP Demo App demonstrates how Tealium serves as a universal data connector between:

• Conversational AI Platforms
• Customer Service Systems
• Marketing Automation Platforms
• Commerce Platforms
• Mobile Applications
• IoT Devices

This interoperability uses Tealium as an enterprise-wide AI context provider, enabling consistent personalization across all touchpoints through a uniform data exchange protocol.

Technical Architecture

The MCP Demo App features the following stack components:

• Frontend: Next.js 14.1.0 with React 18 and TypeScript
• State Management: React Context API for visitor profile data handling
• Styling: Tailwind CSS with component-based design
• API Layer: Server-side API routes for secure credential management
• Authentication: JWT-based token validation for API security

Technical Requirements

• Server Environment: Node.js 16+ with npm/yarn
• Client Support: Modern browsers with ES6 compatibility
• API Access: The Tealium account with Moments API access is enabled along with the appropriate endpoints. (It’s also possible to use other Tealium APIs)
• Data Source: Properly configured Tealium data source for event ingestion
• Demo source code: https://github.com/Tealium/tealium-mcp-demo

The MCP Demo App follows a modular architecture with three primary technical components:

1. MCP Implementation Layer: A TypeScript-based protocol implementation that standardizes JSON payloads for AI model events with the following schema types:
   • ModelConfig: Platform, model name, version, and parameter specifications
   • QueryData: User query encoding with visitor context references
   • ResponseData: Model response with performance metrics and token usage
2. Bidirectional API Integration:
   • Implements Tealium’s Moments API for visitor profile data retrieval (GET)
   • Supports Tealium EventStream API for event transmission (POST)
   • Features configurable endpoint proxying to prevent CORS issues
   • Includes retry logic with exponential backoff for API resilience
3. Developer Tooling:
   • API testing console with request/response inspection
   • Configuration validation with TypeScript interfaces
   • Debug logging with structured JSON output
   • Error handling with fallback strategies

Technical Specifications

The MCP Demo App implements the following key technical features:

1. Standardized MCP Event Schema

The MCP Demo App defines three primary MCP event types with standardized JSON schemas as seen in Code Snippet 1:

Code Snippet 1: MCP event types

// Model Deployment Events
interface ModelDeploymentEvent {
  event_name: 'ai_model_deployment';
  model_platform: string;
  model_name: string;
  model_version: string;
  model_type: string;
  model_configuration: Record<string, any>;
  deployment_id: string;
  deployment_timestamp: string;
  deployment_status: string;
  deployment_environment: string;
}

// Model Query Events
interface ModelQueryEvent {
  event_name: 'ai_model_query';
  query_id: string;
  query_text: string;
  query_timestamp: string;
  user_id: string;
  visitor_id?: string;
  session_id: string;
  context?: Record<string, any>;
}

// Model Response Events
interface ModelResponseEvent {
  event_name: 'ai_model_response';
  query_id: string;
  response_text: string;
  response_timestamp: string;
  response_latency_ms?: number;
  tokens_used?: number;
  context_used?: Record<string, any>;
  error?: any;
  has_error: boolean;
}

2. Visitor Profile Retrieval System

The MCP Demo App implements multiple methods for retrieving visitor profiles:

• Anonymous Visitor ID Lookup: Retrieves profiles using Tealium’s anonymous IDs
• Email-Based Lookup: Maps email addresses to visitor profiles using attribute ID
• Custom Attribute Lookup: Supports any customer-defined attribute for visitor identification
• Context Enrichment: Automatically enriches AI context with visitor profile data

3. Technical Implementation Details

API Authentication: Implements Bearer token authentication with API key validation

• Request/Response Logging: Structured logging with configurable verbosity levels
• Error Handling: Comprehensive error handling with typed error responses
• Performance Metrics: Automated latency tracking for API requests
• Mock Data Support: Developer mode with configurable mock data responses
• Environment Configuration: Support for multiple environment configurations (dev/test/prod)

Cross-Channel Strategic Benefits

MCP strategically influences how enterprises connect their data infrastructure with the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem. As organizations deploy AI across customer touchpoints – from chatbots to voice assistants, mobile apps to IoT devices – they face critical data consistency and context sharing challenges. Our implementation creates a unified data fabric so AI interactions, regardless of channel, access the same comprehensive customer context, eliminating the siloed AI experiences that frustrate customers and undermine brand trust.

MCP delivers transformative capabilities for connecting Tealium’s CDP across the entire enterprise technology landscape:

1. Enterprise AI Governance & Consistency

• Unified Customer Knowledge Graph: Ensures every AI interaction draws from the same consistent data foundation
• Cross-Channel Identity Resolution: Maintains customer identity continuity across disparate touchpoints
• Centralized AI Interaction Analytics: Provides comprehensive visibility into AI interactions across all channels
• Governance & Compliance Controls: Enforces consistent data usage policies across all AI implementations

2. Omnichannel Experience Orchestration

• Seamless Context Transfer: Allows conversations to move across channels while maintaining context
• Progressive Customer Understanding: Continuously enriches customer profiles with insights from each AI interaction
• Consistent Personalization Rules: Enforces uniform personalization strategies across all customer touchpoints
• Channel-Specific Optimization: Enables tailored experiences optimized for each channel’s unique capabilities

3. Integration Capabilities

The application provides several integration methods for developers:

1. SDK Integration as seen in Code Snippet 2.

Code Snippet 2: SDK integration

import { 
  sendModelQueryMcp, 
  sendModelResponseMcp 
} from '@tealium/mcp-sdk';

// Track user query
const queryResult = await sendModelQueryMcp(
  {
    query: "What products are on sale?",
    visitor_id: "a-visitor-id-12345"
  },
  {
    model_name: "gpt-4",
    model_version: "1.0",
    platform: "openai"
  },
  {
    account: "my-tealium-account",
    profile: "my-profile",
    dataSourceKey: "abc123"
  }
);

// Track model response
await sendModelResponseMcp(
  {
    query_id: queryResult.query_id,
    response: "Several items are currently discounted..."
  },
  {
    model_name: "gpt-4",
    model_version: "1.0",
    platform: "openai"
  },
  {
    account: "my-tealium-account",
    profile: "my-profile",
    dataSourceKey: "abc123"
  }
);

2. Universal Channel Support (Web, Mobile, In-Store, Agents)

3. Enterprise System Connectors (CRM, Marketing, Commerce)

Adaptable AI Data Composability

MCP with Tealium fits within the evolving enterprise AI landscape and easily allows for the adaptation of more integrations or the swapping out of different implementations as needed, driving composability for AI vendor neutrality, future-proofing against channel proliferation, data enrichment and activation acceleration, competitive differentiation, and partner ecosystem enhancements or additions.

MCP integration addresses a significant challenge enterprise customers face: making customer data accessible, actionable, and consistent across the rapidly proliferating world of AI-powered channels. By adopting MCP, we’re creating a future where customer data flows seamlessly to wherever the customer engages. Look out for future Tealium MCP innovations!

As customer journeys become increasingly digital and self-directed, the ability to deliver personalized experiences at scale has never been more critical. The combination of Tealium with the MCP Demo App provides organizations with a robust foundation for:

• Real-time personalization across all customer touchpoints
• AI-enhanced experiences powered by comprehensive customer data
• Consistent engagement throughout complex journeys
• Data-driven insights to continuously improve customer experiences

By standardizing how customer data is collected, unified, and activated, MCP is helping organizations transform their customer experiences and drive measurable business results.

Continued Learnings

For more details on Tealium components mentioned in this article:AIStream