OpenAI on Tuesday rolled out a beta feature set called "Businesses" within ChatGPT that gives companies a formal way to claim and manage a presence inside the chatbot environment. The offering centers on two primary components - Business Hub and Business Agents - designed to let businesses supply up-to-date information, attach product listings and monitor aggregated user engagement.
Through Business Hub, companies can claim their listing in ChatGPT and, after a verification process, update key business details and attach product feeds that include pricing and availability. OpenAI said Business Hub will surface aggregated metrics to businesses, such as mentions, views and website clicks, to help companies understand how users interact with their ChatGPT presence.
Complementing the Hub is a feature OpenAI calls Business Agents. These agents allow ChatGPT users to interact directly with a representative agent tied to a business to ask questions about its products or services. The company said the Business Agents capability is being initially rolled out to eligible e-commerce and online service businesses located in the United States.
OpenAI emphasized privacy safeguards in its rollout. The company stated that it does not provide businesses with the contents of users' conversations or the Business Agent chats themselves. Instead, insights provided to businesses are aggregated and only made available when there are sufficient numbers of conversations or interactions to exceed predefined thresholds.
Businesses will also have the option to sponsor their Business Agent and use that agent as the landing point for ChatGPT Ads, with sponsored placements clearly labeled, according to OpenAI. Existing OpenAI Enterprise customers and companies that advertise with OpenAI can coordinate with their OpenAI representative to claim their business listings. Shopify merchants, OpenAI said, can connect their stores either through the Business Hub or via the Shopify admin interface.
The new capabilities introduce a structured path for commercial entities to manage how they appear inside ChatGPT, incorporate product-level information and receive aggregated engagement metrics while maintaining restrictions on access to raw user conversations. The initial eligibility constraints - limited to certain e-commerce and online service businesses in the U.S. - define the early scope of the rollout.
This release also notes that businesses may use sponsored placements for their Business Agents as a destination for ChatGPT Ads, subject to labeling of sponsored content. Companies already engaged with OpenAI through enterprise relationships or advertising can follow existing channels to claim and configure their profiles, and Shopify merchants have an explicit connection path noted by the company.