NVIDIA has added a new AI feature to the NVIDIA App, and a lot of PC players are telling each other to switch it off. Version 11.0.9.565 of the app, which rolled out earlier this week (October 13th), includes a local MCP server that lets compatible AI agents control the app through plain-language requests. Players quickly noticed that the setting was already turned on after the app updated itself, and warnings about it have been spreading across social media ever since.
NVIDIA lists the feature in the official release highlights for the update under "AI Agent Support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) server." The notes read: "NVIDIA App includes a local MCP server (Model Context Protocol) that lets a compatible AI agent control the NVIDIA App using natural-language requests. This means your AI assistant like Hermes, OpenClaw or Perplexity can see your installed games and apply optimal settings, or enable Shadowplay to record gameplay, all through simple conversation." The release notes point users to the new setting but never mention that it ships enabled.
Players Sound The Alarm
The warnings took off when Agustín Cordes, the founder of Senscape, designer of the horror adventure games Scratches and Asylum, and cinematic director of Silent Hill: Ascension, posted about it on Thursday (October 15th). His post has since passed 1.7 million views and more than 27,000 likes. Check it out below:
One quote post ended up even bigger than the original. The user acidburns shared it with a short warning that has picked up more than 46,000 likes and over a million views:
DatCoopGuy, a World of Warcraft YouTuber who also works in cyber security, gave a calmer take. He said agent connections can be useful for people who already work with AI agents, but that most players have no reason to leave the door open. "Just gonna say turn this feature off. Trust from the cyber security man. If you work with AI agents its a good way to add filtering and protections and secondary checks but to the common folk it adds a threat vector that is better off closed," he wrote. He added that there are no reported exploits yet, but that the feature is new and adds a connection that could be abused later.
Over on Mastodon, developer mcc posted the same day, telling followers to open the app and uncheck the setting, and adding, "This checkbox will be on by default if you have not specifically turned it off."
What AI Agents Can Actually Do
NVIDIA has published documentation for the MCP server on its official GitHub, and it gives a clear picture of what an agent can touch. The general tools let an agent list the games and apps the NVIDIA App has detected, launch them, check which driver is installed and pull its release notes, apply Performance, Balanced, Quality, or Recommended settings presets to a game, and change laptop features like Battery Boost and Whisper Mode. A second set of tools works with the in-game overlay, so an agent can start and stop recording, save Instant Replay clips, take screenshots, toggle Highlights, show or hide the performance stats overlay, and turn on RTX Dynamic Vibrance.
The server runs locally on the PC at a loopback address, which means it does not open the machine up to the internet by itself, and nothing happens unless a compatible agent is installed and connected to it. The concern from players is the default. Most people with a GeForce card have no AI agent running, so a background service built for agents offers them nothing, and anything connected to it could reach their settings and recordings without them ever opting in. It has also been pointed out that many agents rely on cloud services, so information an agent pulls from the NVIDIA App could leave the PC depending on how that agent works.
Why NVIDIA Added It Now
The timing lines up with NVIDIA's biggest AI push on PC so far. RTX Spark laptops went on sale yesterday (October 16th) from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and MSI, built around a chip that pairs a Blackwell RTX GPU with a Grace CPU and up to 128GB of unified memory. NVIDIA is pitching them as machines for running personal AI agents locally, with day-one support for agents like Hermes and OpenClaw. The same NVIDIA App update also added native RTX Spark support, a new Performance Mode for DLSS Frame Generation in beta, and new CPU stats for the overlay.
The MCP setting is not limited to RTX Spark machines, though. It shows up for anyone who installs the latest version of the app. NVIDIA has been moving in this direction for a while, too. Project G-Assist, its experimental AI assistant that can tweak game settings and performance through voice or text commands, has been available through the NVIDIA App since last year. NVIDIA has not publicly responded to the complaints about the default setting so far.
How To Turn It Off
The setting can be disabled without uninstalling anything. Open the NVIDIA App, go to Settings, then Features, and scroll down to the AI agents and app connections section. Switch off "Allow AI agents to control NVIDIA App," and the toggle will turn from green to gray. According to NVIDIA's documentation, turning off that master toggle stops the server from running, and it can be switched back on from the same menu at any time. Since the app updates itself automatically, it is worth checking the toggle again after future updates.
Are you turning the AI agent setting off right away, or are you curious to see what an agent can do with your NVIDIA App?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.