OpenAI has opened Businesses in ChatGPT, a new beta programme that lets companies claim a profile inside the chatbot, keep their details current, and see how often ChatGPT mentions them. The company announced the launch on Monday, 10 November, framing it as a way for businesses to reach the 1.2 billion people it says use ChatGPT each week. Alongside the profiles, OpenAI is adding Business Agents — branded chat assistants that answer customer questions inside ChatGPT.
What businesses get
The centre of the launch is Business Hub, where a company claims its organisation and, once verified, updates key details and adds self-service product feeds with prices and availability. Verification runs through a code sent to the business phone or email, a DNS record, or a Shopify store connection.
Shopify merchants can connect from Business Hub or their Shopify admin, and eligible Shopify products already flow into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog. Business Hub also reports how people engage with a business in ChatGPT, counting mentions and website clicks, and surfacing discovery topics.
The figures come in seven-day and 28-day views, covering the common themes in conversations where the business’s site is cited. OpenAI says the insights are aggregated, appear only when enough conversations meet its thresholds, and never include users’ conversations or Business Agent chats.
Business Agents
After claiming a profile, eligible organisations can build, test, and launch a Business Agent that answers questions and helps people explore what they offer. The agents are available now to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the United States.
When a business appears in a model response, people can open its ChatGPT profile, and if an agent is available, start a conversation with it. Those chats are clearly labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT’s own answers, so a customer always knows when they are talking to the business.
Businesses can also sponsor a Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, with sponsored placements clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT’s responses. OpenAI says claiming a profile does not guarantee higher placement or more sales, and ChatGPT keeps making its own independent recommendations using other sources alongside the business’s profile.
Our Read
This is OpenAI building the commercial layer ChatGPT has lacked. Google has run business profiles for years, and ChatGPT’s answer engine has been recommending businesses it knew little about. Giving companies a verified profile and a feed of prices and stock turns those recommendations from guesses into something a business can shape.
The open question is how much shaping is allowed: OpenAI is explicit that paying or claiming buys no rank, and the test will be whether users trust answers that now carry a business’s own words. The agent side matters more than the profile.
A Business Agent that answers inside ChatGPT keeps the customer in OpenAI’s app rather than sending them to a website, which is a trade businesses will weigh carefully. For small shops, a claimed profile plus a chatbot that knows their catalogue is a real step up.
For bigger brands, the missing pieces are measurement beyond mentions and clicks, and any guarantee that their agent will not be outranked by a rival’s. Until those arrive, the biggest companies will treat Business Agents as an experiment, not a channel.
Why It Matters
ChatGPT has become a place where people discover products and decide what to buy, and until now businesses had no handle on how they appeared there. A claimed profile with live prices is the difference between being recommended on stale information and being recommended on current facts.
It follows OpenAI’s move to sell ChatGPT Enterprise through Amazon’s marketplace, and it lands as Google pushes its own AI Mode ads in search. The two companies are now competing directly for the same shopping queries — and for the businesses behind them.
Background
The launch was foreshadowed earlier, when an early version of the Business Hub interface surfaced before OpenAI had said anything. That preview showed mention and click charts for verified businesses — the same analytics that are now live in the beta. OpenAI says it will expand Businesses in ChatGPT and Business Agents to more markets and business categories over time.
Source: OpenAI’s announcement.
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