Working smarter

Bring your own AI.

By Teresa & Sem Abrahams · 3 min read

You don't have to use our assistant. If you already talk to an AI — Claude, or anything that speaks a standard called MCP — you can point it straight at ActBook and let it run your bookings directly. No middle layer, no us in between. Here's what that actually means.

MCP, in one line

MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is simply an agreed way for an AI assistant to use an outside tool — a common plug, so any assistant that speaks it can work any tool that offers it. ActBook ships a native MCP server. Which means your assistant doesn't need a custom integration built for it; it already knows how to talk to us.

Connect it once

You generate an API key in your account — scoped to exactly what you want the assistant to be able to do — and point your assistant at one address:

https://actbook.app/api/mcp

That's the whole setup. On connection the assistant asks ActBook what it can do and gets back a menu of tools — check availability, quote and book, send a contract, raise an invoice, text a client, pull a report, run outreach, and more. You didn't teach it any of that; it discovered it.

Then just talk

From there it's the same experience as our own assistant, because underneath it's the same thing: your words become actions against the ActBook API. “Is the 9th free?” “Book the school for Circus Day.” “Who's due to re-book?” The assistant you already like, now able to run the booking side of your business.

We didn't want to be one more app you're forced to open. If you've already got an assistant you trust, use that one.

Your rules still apply — whoever's driving

This is the part that makes “bring your own AI” safe rather than scary. Whatever assistant you connect, it goes through the same door as everything else: the scoped key, the audit trail, the dry-run, the rate limit. A borrowed assistant can't do anything your key doesn't allow, and it can't do anything invisibly. You hand it a key with exactly the reach you're comfortable with, and you can pull that key back any time.

Why we built it this open

Because the tools performers use are only going to get smarter, and the last thing we want is to be the wall between your business and the assistant you'll be using in a year. Your data, your bookings, your choice of AI. We just make sure that whatever's holding the keys, it's holding them the way you set.

See the API & AI →