Amid efforts to identify trends in AI-agent-related stocks, Google in the US announced a multi-agent tool for the cloud on 8 October, accelerating the drive to standardise companies' internal data connections around the MCP standard. In Japanese equities, a list including leading and lagging stocks was published, with benefits expected to spread mainly to upstream IT consultants and systems integrators.
AI agents represent a new form of technology that autonomously operates multiple tools and completes tasks based only on broad instructions from humans, while MCP is regarded as an important common standard for connecting external systems. Proposed by Anthropic and subsequently made open, MCP is designed to allow agents from various companies, including Gemini agent, to connect to MCP servers.
Against this backdrop, this news story identifies AI-agent-related stocks in the Japanese market and lists potential leading and lagging stocks. It also points to a market structure in which upstream IT consultants, major systems integrators and AI-focused integrators capture order opportunities as SaaS's UI-dependent business model undergoes a shift.
As AI agents become more widely adopted, companies responsible for the underlying infrastructure are expected to benefit alongside the spread of MCP. Representative Japanese stocks cited include ULSグループ, シグマクシスHD, 野村総合研究所, Fujitsu, NEC and シンプレクスHD.
Several stocks are discussed individually as leading or lagging stocks, with the view presented that companies responsible for upstream design and implementation support will have opportunities to secure orders early. The stocks are categorised into IT consulting, systems integration, AI-focused integration and cloud companies.