Nexus Connect

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that allows AI chat agents, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot, to connect directly to external data sources, tools and services. Think of it as a universal adapter: instead of building a separate integration for each AI platform, a service provider builds one MCP connector and any compatible AI agent can discover and use it.

MCP was originally developed by Anthropic and is now governed by the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, with broad industry support from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and others. It is rapidly becoming the standard way for AI systems to access external content and capabilities.

Nexus Connect, the Clarivate Institutional MCP Connector is a single, university-branded integration layer that connects library and institutional research & learning systems with AI chat agents.

Today, MCP connectors are designed for individual users, who must find and activate them on their own. Institutions have no visibility into which connectors their users select, no way to ensure access to the right resources and no ability to maintain a consistent, branded experience.

Nexus Connect solves this by giving the institution a single integration point that:

• Surfaces library-licensed content and services inside AI chat agents
• Applies institutional entitlements
• Reflects the institution’s brand
• Works across major enterprise AI platforms, giving universities flexibility in their AI choices
• Connects additional (non-Clarivate) MCP-based services, such as library research guides and other campus tools

When a user interacts with the AI agent, the connector enables the agent to search library collections, retrieve trusted academic content, access library services and ground its responses in the institution’s resources — all within the user’s existing AI workflow

Nexus Connect will work across major enterprise AI environments, such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude and OpenAI ChatGPT.

This gives universities flexibility in their AI platform choices — whether they have already licensed an enterprise AI tool or are still evaluating options — while retaining a consistent institutional layer across all of them.

Yes. Nexus Connect reflects the library’s collection strategy and policies and does not promote any single provider or collection.

What Nexus Connect surfaces is driven by the library’s choices and configurations. It follows institutional entitlements, linking rules and resolver logic to determine which content to present, prioritizing sources according to library preferences.

Nexus Connect is designed so that AI responses are grounded in the institution’s trusted scholarly resources rather than open-web content alone. It supplies the AI agent with trusted data and references, and the quality of the underlying sources helps ensure the reliability of the responses.

Additionally, Nexus Connect provides source attribution with every response, so users can always verify the origin of the information and actively validate its accuracy and relevance prior to use.

Clarivate continuously tests and evaluates its AI-powered services, including through collaboration with customers, subject matter experts and the community forums.

Nexus Connect and the Nexus Extend are complementary products that share the same goal: connecting AI users to trusted resources and services and keeping the library central in AI chat agents. They differ in how they achieve this.

Nexus Extend is a browser extension that operates across AI chat tools and web pages. It detects scholarly context, verifies citations and connects users to library resources — working at the browser level, regardless of the underlying platform. It is primarily designed for access, verification and surface-level discovery.
Available for: Users’ personal chat agents and institutional (enterprise) chat agents

Nexus Connect is an institutional connector that integrates library systems and services directly into enterprise AI chat agents and is therefore embedded deeper in the user workflow. It enables the AI agent itself to search library collections, retrieve content and deliver library services as part of its responses, opening the door to end-to-end workflows conducted directly from the AI chat agent.
Available for: Institutional (enterprise) chat agents and customized library agents

There is no single right approach — different users have different needs and preferences, and institutions may choose either or both. An institution may deploy the Nexus Extend to support users across a wide range of environments, and Nexus Connect to deeply integrate library services into their enterprise AI platform. Together, they provide comprehensive coverage — from lightweight, browser-based assistance to deep, platform-level integration.

User privacy is a core element of Nexus Connect. The connector is built on the Clarivate Academic AI Platform, which provides robust privacy, security and governance guardrails across all Clarivate AI-powered services.

Nexus Connect is an MCP connector, not a generative AI product. It does not generate responses itself but rather serves as a bridge between the AI chat agent and the library’s content and services. This architecture means no personally identifiable information (PII) is collected or stored by Nexus Connect. All processing follows strict privacy and security standards, consistent with Clarivate’s data protection policies and applicable regulations.

Yes. Nexus Connect will be extensible to connect additional MCP-based services beyond the Clarivate portfolio. This means institutions can bring other campus tools and resources into the same institutional connector, giving users a unified experience within their AI chat environment.

This is achieved through remote MCP server connections, allowing the institution to expand the range of services available through Nexus Connect as their AI ecosystem grows.