Expana launches Expana IQ Connect, an MCP server for agrifood price benchmarks and forecasts
Industry News · Agriculture · October 5, 2026
When the buyer works inside an AI assistant, the data vendor must deliver its data into that assistant
Expana launched Expana IQ Connect on September 30, 2026. It is an enterprise server that uses the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It gives AI agents in Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini direct access to Expana benchmark prices, forecasts and insights for agrifood markets. A cost model agent is already live, and Expana plans more specialist agents.
Expana sells commodity market data for food and agriculture. Its customers include procurement teams, category managers, supply chain directors and commodity buyers. Many of these buyers now use AI assistants that their companies chose as a standard.
MCP is an open standard. It lets an AI assistant call an outside tool or data source. With IQ Connect, a buyer can ask an assistant about a price trend, and the assistant reads Expana data to answer.
CEO Julie Harris said that “the winners will be those whose AI is grounded in trusted, reliable data.” Chief Product Officer Vinay Kapoor described IQ Connect as a direct line from Expana benchmarks and forecasts into the AI tools that customers already use.
GrowinAgri reported the launch on October 2. It noted that the Expana cost-modeling agent is already in operation. Expana also reported more than 500 new price forecasts across 16 commodity categories in a related announcement.
The takeaway
For a B2B data company, the buyer’s AI assistant is now a sales channel. If your product is information, ship an MCP server so that the buyer’s agent can read your data where the buyer works.
Why it matters for agent-led growth
- Buyers ask the assistant first. A procurement manager who asks Copilot about a price trend gets an answer from the data that the assistant can reach. Data that the assistant cannot reach does not get used.
- Trust is the selling point. Expana sells grounded data. Return the source and the date with every answer that your server gives.
- Data owners can sell agents. Expana moved from a data feed to a live cost model agent. An agent that uses your own data is a product that a competitor cannot copy quickly.
- Commodity buying suits agents. Commodity buyers make frequent decisions that depend on current prices. An agent that reads current data supports each of those decisions.
