Google Connected Apps Platform: MCP apps in Gemini and Search

Until today, getting your service inside Gemini meant being Adobe or Peloton. On October 28 Google opened the Connected Apps Platform in preview: any business can register an MCP server, test it, and submit it to appear inside the Gemini app, Google Search, or both. The front page of the internet now takes tool calls, not just links.

What actually happened

Per TechCrunch, developers plug in one of two ways: a cloud-hosted MCP server, or an Android integration built on the AppFunctions APIs. Registration, testing, and submission run through a new Google Connected Console, where you pick Search, Gemini, or both as the surface. After launch you get traffic, latency, and error-rate numbers, and you keep your verified logo and authenticated accounts.

Google's developer page adds the plumbing. The remote MCP server needs OAuth 2.1 for account linking. Users link your app once, then see their account data and take actions in your service from inside Google's products. You can ship interactive UI with MCP Apps. The console handles tool registration, usage analysis, and a review-and-publishing step.

Gemini already has more than 50 connected apps, including Adobe, Experian, Localiza, and Peloton. Search has fewer, such as Instacart, Canva, and YouTube Music, and more apps come to Search over the next few weeks. TechCrunch reports the preview is for U.S. developers through a waitlist, with no date for general availability. Google has not announced fees or a revenue share.

Why it matters for your business

Search is becoming an app store. For twenty years the deal was simple: rank, get the click, convert on your site. Now a shopper in AI Mode can book, reorder, or check status without leaving Google. If your competitor is a connected app and you are a blue link, you lose the action.

The MCP server is the same work everywhere. ChatGPT, Claude, Walmart's agent gateway, and now Google all speak MCP. One well-scoped server with clean OAuth gets you into all of them. That is the reason to build it now, not the Google preview alone.

Scope the tools before you submit. Every tool you expose is an action a model can take on a customer's account. Start read-only: order status, availability, quotes. Add writes like bookings or cancellations once you have the error-rate data to trust them.

Watch the numbers Google gives you. Latency and errors in the console are your new conversion funnel. A slow tool call is an abandoned cart you never see.

Sources: TechCrunch, Google for Developers: Connected Apps.