AI Weekly: Claude Code Dominates, MCP Goes Mainstream — Week of March 5, 2026

The past seven days confirmed what developers have been saying for months: AI coding tools are no longer optional, and the competition is reshaping how software gets built. A landmark developer survey crowned Claude Code as the most-used AI coding assistant. Google pushed a major MCP protocol contribution. And the agent standard wars crystallized around three complementary layers with NIST stepping in to set security priorities. AI Coding Tools: Claude Code Reaches the Top A new survey from The Pragmatic Engineer, published March 3, landed with real weight in developer communities. Nearly a thousand software engineers responded, and the findings are striking. Claude Code, released in May 2025, has become the most-used AI coding tool — overtaking both GitHub Copilot and Cursor in just eight months. Among respondents at smaller companies, 75% reported using Claude Code as their primary tool. The survey found that 95% of respondents now use AI tools at least weekly, and 75% report using A