Open Source in Finance Forum London 2026

Financial desktop users run 5 to 15 apps at once. MCP Apps lets AI agents return interactive HTML interfaces inside chat interfaces acting as MCP hosts, but the current model buries these apps in chat history with duplicate copies stacking up. No persistent workspace, no inter-app context sharing, no layout control.

For regulated environments where traders, PMs, and compliance teams need multiple tools visible and auditable simultaneously, this is a potential production blocker. This talk addresses three gaps: app lifecycle (chat widgets into persistent workspace applications), multi-app orchestration (coordinated agentic flows across simultaneous MCP Apps), and layout (giving data-dense financial UIs the screen real estate they need).

The open source ecosystem has the building blocks. Open source layout managers like Dockview and GoldenLayout provide workspace primitives MCP Apps hosts lack. FDC3, maintained by FINOS, adds context sharing and intent resolution across active apps. We combine these in a working prototype, building on our OSFF NYC 2025 session on FDC3 intents as MCP tools.