In this episode of Agents at Work, Jordi sits down with Gil Feig, co-founder of Merge, to talk about the unglamorous "plumbing" that suddenly matters even more in the age of AI: integrations and data access.

Gil breaks down why everyone having access to the same LLMs makes proprietary advantage shift toward who has the best data, the best access patterns, and the most reliable connections and how Merge is evolving from unified, synced integrations to agentic, MCP-style live calling.

They explore:

• Sync vs live access: why copying + normalizing datasets helps retrieval, but comes with real cost and limits-
• What MCP really is (and isn’t): “list tools” + “call tool” in practice
• The security trap of tool-calling—and why Merge built DLP + approvals into the workflow
• How Merge’s Agent Handler shows up in production (an MCP server backed by connectors + security)
• Pricing in the agent era: per tool call for the new product, and per connected customer for the classic one

If you’re building agents that need to do real work and you want a sober take on what breaks in production, this one’s for you.