OpenAI opens ChatGPT to business profiles
OpenAI has launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, letting companies claim profiles, supply product data and deploy their own agents in front of ChatGPT's 1.2 billion weekly users.
OpenAI announced Businesses in ChatGPT, a beta product made up of two parts: Business Hub, where companies manage how they appear in ChatGPT, and Business Agents, which handle conversations on a company's behalf.
Through Business Hub, any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available can claim and verify its organization. It can then update key details and add self-service product feeds with pricing and availability. Shopify merchants can connect their store from Business Hub or the Shopify admin, and eligible Shopify products already appear in ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog. Existing Enterprise customers and advertisers can go through their OpenAI representative.
The hub also gives businesses aggregated insights, including how often they are mentioned, how many website clicks they get, and "discovery topics," meaning common themes in conversations where their site is cited. OpenAI says it does not share user conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses, and insights appear only once interaction volumes pass certain thresholds.
Business Agents are launching first for eligible U.S. ecommerce and online service businesses. When a business shows up in a model response, users can open its profile and start a labeled conversation with its agent. That conversation is kept separate from the original chat and from ChatGPT's own answers.
The launch also connects to OpenAI's advertising push, which we covered as it expanded to 26 more countries. Businesses can sponsor their agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, with sponsored placements labeled.
OpenAI calls this "an early step." It plans to bring the products to more markets and categories, but has not given a timeline or pricing.