Claude stands out among AI because it actually does the work: it can analyze and build dashboards, documents, mini-apps, and more. However, Claude is fundamentally limited by the data context it can access and use—which means Claude isn't able to analyze and build artifacts with your current business context in mind, leading to hallucinations, generic outputs, and wasted time.

CData Connect AI provides an enterprise MCP platform that gives Claude secure, governed access to live data across 300+ sources. Connect AI sits between Claude and your data systems, providing the critical governance, security, and control layer that makes AI-powered analysis safe for production use—while delivering the real-time, in-place query performance that makes it fast and practical.

Enhance Claude's standout features with connected data

Claude's most powerful features go beyond conversational AI. These capabilities transform from impressive to indispensable when paired with rich, trusted data:

Artifacts (live outputs you can explore)

Claude generates interactive dashboards, charts, mini-apps, and visualizations alongside narrative responses. When Claude can access real-time data from your systems through Connect AI, users don't just get an answer—they get a live, working result to explore, tweak, embed, or share with leadership. Imagine asking Claude to "Show me Q4 pipeline by rep" and receiving an interactive dashboard built from your actual Salesforce data in seconds, not a generic template or fictional numbers.

Projects (persistent, organized context)

Teams use Projects in Claude as long-lived workspaces where files, instructions, definitions, and connected data sources carry across sessions. This persistent context means conversations continue to build domain knowledge—retaining your metric definitions, business logic, and data relationships across queries. That continuity becomes critical when analyzing trends, performing longitudinal reviews, or ensuring your team uses consistent definitions for "revenue," "customer churn," or "qualified lead."

Claude Code and autonomous execution

Claude Code supports multi-step workflows, terminal interactions, testing, and agent-style execution. This moves beyond "help me write code" into "help me build and run automated workflows." When Claude can access live data systems through Connect AI, these capabilities become practical automation engines—reading from your issue tracker, querying your data warehouse, writing tested code, and even opening PRs, all grounded in real business context.

Connect AI: The enterprise MCP platform Claude needs

Connect AI is purpose-built to solve the fundamental challenge of AI-data integration: how do you give Claude access to business data while maintaining enterprise-grade security, governance, and performance?

The governance and control layer AI needs

Connect AI sits between Claude and your data sources, providing centralized control over what data Claude can access and how:

Identity propagation and dynamic access control: Every query Claude makes runs with the user's actual permissions. Your CFO and your intern can both use the same Claude Project—they'll just see different data based on their authorization levels.

Row-level security and data filtering: Control access down to individual rows and columns. Claude respects the same data boundaries your organization already enforces.

Comprehensive audit logging: Track exactly who accessed what data, when, and through which Claude interaction—whether it's a chat query, a Project analysis, or an autonomous agent action.

Unified governance surface: Manage security policies, access rules, and compliance requirements for all Claude use cases from a single control plane. One governance framework covers chat analysis, Project workspaces, and agent automation.

Enterprise authentication: Integrate seamlessly with your existing SSO and identity providers. No separate credential management required.

This governance layer ensures Claude's power is matched by enterprise-grade control—making AI adoption safe for regulated industries, sensitive data, and mission-critical workflows.

Real-time data, queried in place

Most AI-data solutions rely on data replication: copying your data into data lakes, warehouses, or vector databases before Claude can use it. Connect AI takes a fundamentally different approach:

Query data where it lives: Connect AI queries your source systems directly—no ETL pipelines, no data duplication, no synchronization delays. When you ask Claude about today's metrics, you get today's numbers from the actual source of truth.

Always current, never stale: Because Connect AI accesses live data, your dashboards, analyses, and agent actions always reflect the current state of your business. No more wondering whether you're looking at yesterday's snapshot or last week's export.

Reduced infrastructure complexity: Eliminate the cost and maintenance burden of replicating data across multiple systems. Connect AI's in-place query approach means less infrastructure to manage, fewer failure points, and lower total cost of ownership.

Optimized query performance: Connect AI performs intelligent SQL pushdown, executing queries at the source database where they run fastest. When Claude asks for "top 10 customers by revenue," Connect AI translates that into an efficient query that leverages the source system's indexes and optimization—not a full table scan in an AI layer.

This real-time, in-place architecture means Claude works with actual business reality, not historical snapshots or replicated copies.

Semantic models that speak your business language

Raw database tables don't tell Claude what your business actually means. Connect AI bridges this gap with advanced semantic models:

Pre-built business intelligence: Connect AI understands how your Salesforce objects relate, what "closed-won" means in your CRM, how your NetSuite subsidiaries roll up, and which fields represent the metrics your team cares about. Claude can reason about your business using the same language and concepts your team uses.

Context-aware query translation: When you ask Claude for "revenue by region," Connect AI knows exactly which tables to join, which fields to sum, which filters to apply, and how to handle currency conversions or regional hierarchies—without you explaining your data model in every prompt.

Relationship mapping: Connect AI maintains the semantic relationships between your data entities. Claude understands that opportunities belong to accounts, accounts have contacts, and contacts have activities—enabling sophisticated multi-table analysis without technical SQL knowledge.

Business logic preservation: Your organization's specific calculations, metric definitions, and business rules are encoded in Connect AI's semantic layer. When Claude calculates "customer lifetime value" or "sales velocity," it uses your definitions, ensuring consistency across all analyses.

These semantic models dramatically reduce hallucinations and incorrect interpretations. Claude doesn't guess what your data means—it knows.

One MCP connection for chat, Projects, and agents

Connect AI provides a unified MCP integration that powers every Claude capability:

Single setup, universal access: Configure Connect AI once, and Claude can use your connected data across every context—conversational queries in chat, persistent analysis in Projects, and autonomous execution in Claude Code agents.

Consistent governance across use cases: The same security policies, access controls, and audit trails apply whether Claude is generating a dashboard in chat, analyzing trends in a Project, or executing a multi-step agent workflow. You don't need separate governance frameworks for different Claude features.

Seamless data continuity: A dataset you query in chat can be referenced in a Project. An analysis you build in a Project can inform an agent workflow. Connect AI's unified MCP connection means data and context flow naturally across Claude's entire feature set.

This unified approach eliminates integration complexity and ensures your governance framework scales with your AI adoption—from individual users running ad-hoc queries to teams collaborating in Projects to autonomous agents executing business workflows.

Leading MCP performance and universal compatibility

Connect AI is built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP)—the open standard introduced by Anthropic for AI-data integration—and delivers industry-leading implementation:

Optimized MCP architecture: Connect AI's MCP implementation is engineered for speed and efficiency. Intelligent caching, query optimization, and efficient data serialization ensure Claude gets answers fast, even with complex queries across multiple sources.

Selective, efficient data transfer: Claude pulls only what it needs—summaries, filtered rows, specific metrics—not entire datasets. This preserves token efficiency, reduces latency, and ensures Claude stays focused on relevant context.

Universal source compatibility: Connect AI's 200+ pre-built connectors support virtually every enterprise data source—from cloud applications like Salesforce and NetSuite to databases like Snowflake and PostgreSQL to analytics platforms like Google Analytics and Tableau. If your data lives there, Connect AI can connect Claude to it.

Future-proof integration: As MCP evolves and new AI models adopt the standard, Connect AI ensures your data connections remain compatible. Invest once in Connect AI's platform, and benefit from ongoing compatibility improvements across the AI ecosystem.

Proven at scale: Connect AI handles enterprise query volumes, concurrent users, and complex data relationships without performance degradation. From small teams to Fortune 500 deployments, the platform scales with your needs.

This combination of performance optimization and universal compatibility makes Connect AI the most capable MCP platform available—purpose-built to make Claude's AI capabilities practical for real business use.

Claude + Connect AI: Real use cases that deliver value

With connected data through Connect AI, Claude transforms from a helpful assistant into a mission-critical business tool.

Connect AI ensures every Claude action is accurate, governed, and grounded in live data—so users and AI agents work only with data they're authorized to access, from sources that reflect current business reality.

Getting started: Your first Claude Artifact in 5 minutes

In Connect AI:

1. Connect data sources (e.g., Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics)

2. Enable MCP access and configure exposure rules

3. Copy your Connect AI MCP endpoint URL

In Claude:

1. Open Settings → Add MCP server

2. Paste your MCP URL from Connect AI

3. Authenticate via OAuth or token

4. Run a prompt like: "Create a cash-flow dashboard for last quarter"

Claude queries relevant source data via Connect AI and renders a live Artifact. Share or embed the Artifact into a Project workspace for ongoing use.

No data replication, no custom plumbing, no ETL pipelines—just secure, governed access to live, source-of-truth data in your connected systems.

Why Connect AI is the only MCP platform purpose-built for Claude at enterprise scale

Connect AI is the first managed platform built specifically for MCP. It supports hundreds of enterprise sources, handles the infrastructure complexity, and provides a centralized governance layer that scales with your organization.

The complete platform for enterprise AI-data integration:

• Managed and scalable: No infrastructure overhead—Connect AI handles query optimization, caching, and scaling automatically

• Built for AI-native workflows: Supports Claude chat, Projects, Code, and agent orchestration out of the box with a single MCP connection

• Semantic intelligence: Rich models that understand your business domain, not just raw tables

• Enterprise governance layer: Identity propagation, RBAC, audit logging, and compliance controls built in

• Real-time, in-place queries: Access live data without replication or ETL delays

• Universal compatibility: 200+ pre-built connectors from Salesforce to Snowflake

• Leading MCP performance: Optimized architecture delivers fast query results at scale

• Unified control plane: Monitor, audit, and enforce rules across all Claude use cases from a single interface

Connect AI accelerates Claude adoption while ensuring enterprise readiness from day one.

Turn prompts into actionable outcomes, not hallucinations

Claude delivers insights, not just summaries. Connect AI delivers governed data, not just access. Together, they turn generative AI into a production-grade value driver for your business.

Without Connect AI, Claude imagines what your data might look like. It generates plausible-sounding but ultimately fictional dashboards, metrics, and recommendations. You waste time fact-checking every output.

With Connect AI, Claude works with your actual data through a secure, governed platform. The dashboards it builds reflect real numbers. The trends it identifies exist in your business. The recommendations it makes are grounded in reality. The access controls ensure data stays protected. You spend time taking action, not verifying outputs.

If you love Claude for its Artifacts, Projects, and Code capabilities—but find yourself wishing it could work with your actual business data securely and in real-time—Connect AI is the missing piece. It's not just an enhancement; it's the governance, security, and performance platform that makes Claude's most powerful features actually usable for real business decisions.

Get started today

Start your free trial of CData Connect AI, connect a data source, and generate your first data-driven Artifact in Claude. Then expand into Claude Projects and agents with the Claude SDK — all within your existing governance framework.