Businesses can now claim a profile inside ChatGPT, as OpenAI opens up a new way to be found by the 1.2 billion people who use the platform each week.
OpenAI confirmed the launch on 10 November 2026, introducing what it calls Businesses in ChatGPT, currently in beta. The feature centres on a new Business Hub, where companies can claim their profile, verify ownership, and keep their business details accurate and current for ChatGPT users browsing products and services.
“We’re introducing Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, giving businesses a new way to connect with the 1.2 billion people who use ChatGPT each week,” OpenAI said in its announcement. “This gives businesses a new way to provide information to ChatGPT, helping people explore products and services using the most accurate and up-to-date details.”
Alongside the Business Hub, OpenAI is also introducing Business Agents, letting eligible companies build and launch their own AI agent inside ChatGPT to answer customer questions directly, with those conversations clearly labelled and kept separate from ordinary ChatGPT chats.
“Businesses can also sponsor their Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads to reach more potential customers,” OpenAI said.
OpenAI framed the move as part of a longer shift in how people find and compare businesses. “As people turn to AI to discover products, compare options and make decisions, ChatGPT has become the platform for people and businesses to connect through AI. Today’s announcement is an early step in bringing businesses more deeply into ChatGPT.”
The company signalled this is only the start. “As the platform evolves, we’ll explore more ways for businesses to connect with customers, directly or through agents, in ChatGPT and beyond. Our goal is to make ChatGPT more useful for people making decisions, and give businesses new ways to participate and grow.”
What’s available right now
Business Hub is open to eligible businesses in any market where ChatGPT is available. This is where a business claims its profile, verifies ownership, and manages its listed information.
Business Agents are currently limited to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the United States. These let a business’s own AI agent handle customer questions directly inside ChatGPT.
Existing OpenAI Enterprise customers and advertisers can claim their business by working directly with their OpenAI representative, rather than going through the Hub themselves.
Shopify merchants can connect a store through the Hub or through Shopify’s own admin, with eligible Shopify products already appearing through OpenAI’s existing catalogue integration.
OpenAI says it will not share users’ conversations, including chats with Business Agents, with the businesses involved, and that visibility insights are only shown once interactions meet a privacy threshold.
Sponsored Business Agent placements, run through ChatGPT Ads, will be clearly labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT’s regular, unsponsored responses. Sponsorship does not guarantee higher placement in ChatGPT’s independent answers.
How to claim a profile
Confirm your business is in a market where ChatGPT is available.
Go to the Business Hub and start the claim process for your business.
Verify that you are authorised to represent the business, as required by OpenAI before a profile can be activated.
Once verified, update your business details so the information ChatGPT draws on is accurate and current.
If you already run OpenAI Enterprise or advertise through OpenAI, skip the Hub and contact your OpenAI representative directly to complete the claim.
If you’re eligible for a Business Agent (US-based ecommerce or online service business), build and test the agent before launching it to answer customer questions.
Decide whether to sponsor your Business Agent through ChatGPT Ads if you want it to appear as a destination for paid placements.
OpenAI says it plans to expand both Businesses in ChatGPT and Business Agents to more markets and business categories over time.
Good practices for showing up well in ChatGPT
Claiming a profile is one part of being found. How ChatGPT actually surfaces a business in its everyday, unsponsored answers depends heavily on signals outside the platform itself, the same groundwork that governs visibility in AI search more broadly, as outlined in guides like this complete guide to AI search visibility.
Keeping core business listings accurate matters most. A business’s Google Business Profile functions as one of the most heavily used sources ChatGPT draws on, alongside Bing Places, since Microsoft’s Bing underpins much of ChatGPT’s web search layer. Consistency across these listings, plus directories and review platforms, gives ChatGPT a stronger basis for including a business in its answers, particularly when the same name, address and phone number appear the same way everywhere.
Customer reviews also carry weight. When ChatGPT recommends a business for a local query, it often favours ones with strong, current reviews across multiple platforms, not just one. Encouraging recent reviews and responding to them, rather than leaving a profile static, supports that.
A business’s own website matters too. ChatGPT needs to be able to understand a site easily, with clear, plainly stated information about what the business does, where it operates and what it offers, since the website often serves as a primary source ChatGPT checks against, a point also covered in this ChatGPT SEO and optimisation guide.
The Australian angle
For Australian SME owners, this launch lands in the middle of an active national push to get small businesses using AI at all, let alone optimising for it.
The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) has been pressing government to do more here. COSBOA has said Australia’s roughly 2.7 million small businesses need to be central to any serious AI strategy, warning that the gap between small and large businesses risks widening without better support, and that small businesses need practical advice and guidance they can trust, relevant to their industry and genuinely designed to help them rather than sell them a product.
On the government side, several official resources are already available to Australian business owners navigating tools like ChatGPT. business.gov.au, run by the federal government, hosts the National AI Centre’s Guidance for AI Adoption, along with an AI Adoption Tracker showing how other Australian SMEs are using AI by industry, size and outcome.
Cyber.gov.au, run by the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre, has published guidance specifically on using cloud-based AI tools like ChatGPT safely, developed in partnership with the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre and COSBOA. It notes that more small businesses are using AI through applications, websites and enterprise systems hosted in the public cloud, naming OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft Copilot specifically.
AdoptAI, under ai.gov.au, works with banks, telecommunications providers, local councils and industry associations to give small and medium businesses a vendor-neutral pathway into AI adoption.