🖖Spring AI + MCP: can a tool return an image (media) to the LLM?

[RomanSkochko]

We’re building a Spring Boot app that uses Spring AI as an MCP client and a Spring MCP server, and we need a tool that can return a real file—starting with images (png/jpg)—so the LLM can actually see and analyze it.

Right now the tool returns JSON with a presigned S3 URL; the model treats it as plain text, echoes the link, and often says it can’t read the file, so the response is just a URL instead of an analysis/description of the image.

Advice is welcome, thank you!