ChatGPT Now Lets Your Business Claim a Profile and Launch an AI Agent — Free, for Now

Your business can now claim an official profile inside ChatGPT. On November 10, 2026, OpenAI opened a beta called Businesses in ChatGPT, aimed at the 1.2 billion people the company says use the service each week. For eligible U.S. online sellers, it also adds something bigger: a branded AI agent that talks to shoppers on your behalf.

The beta is free for now, according to Digiday's reporting, and it comes with real limits. Here is what you get, who qualifies, what the rules are, and what to check before you claim anything.

What OpenAI launched on November 10

The package has three connected parts. Each works a little differently, so it helps to separate them.

Business Hub: your profile and product feed

Business Hub is the management screen. Once a business is verified, it gets a blue check and can update its details, prices and stock. Owners can also upload a self-service product feed with pricing and availability, which OpenAI says ChatGPT may use when it answers customer questions.

Any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available can claim a profile. Shopify merchants can connect a store from Business Hub or from the Shopify admin, though a Shopify store is not required. Existing OpenAI Enterprise customers and advertisers can work through their OpenAI representative instead. Search Engine Roundtable reported that verification can run through a text or phone call to your main business number, or through DNS verification.

Insights: mentions, clicks and discovery topics

Inside the hub you can see aggregated counts of how often ChatGPT mentions your business and how many people click through to your website. You also get "discovery topics," which are common themes in conversations where ChatGPT cites your site. OpenAI says it does not share users' chats with businesses.

Business Agents: a chat with your business inside ChatGPT

Business Agents let a shopper who sees your business in an answer open your profile and start a separate conversation with your agent. The agent answers using the product details you provide. OpenAI says the chat is labeled, kept apart from ChatGPT's own answers, and distinct from its independent recommendations.

At launch, agents are limited to eligible ecommerce and online-service businesses in the United States. Digiday reported that an agent is built only from the instructions and product feed you supply, that businesses cannot bring their own agents, and that when a shopper is ready to buy, the agent sends them to your own website to finish the purchase. OpenAI is also building agent payments with Visa, according to The Next Web.

What it costs and how ads fit in

Digiday reported that Business Hub and Business Agents are free for now. Benji Shomair, OpenAI's vice president of monetization, did not rule out a paid model later.

The advertising link matters. The same agent can be sponsored and used as the landing spot for ChatGPT Ads, building on a Sponsored Agents test OpenAI began in September. OpenAI says paying does not change how often ChatGPT recommends a business. Shomair also told Digiday that claiming a profile should not change how often you appear. In other words, this is a way to give ChatGPT accurate information about you, not a shortcut up the rankings.

OpenAI did not publish pricing for sponsored agents. Its ad business passed a $1 billion annual run rate in August and now counts 100,000 advertisers, The Next Web reported, so expect the paid option to get attention.

The rules your agent has to follow

OpenAI published a Business Agents Policy, updated November 10. Based on coverage of it, these are the main requirements:

The agent must make clear it is AI representing your business. It cannot pose as a human, an independent adviser or an OpenAI-endorsed source.
You cannot instruct it to invent offerings, prices, availability, credentials, reviews, guarantees or results, or to hide material fees and conditions.
It cannot create false urgency or keep pushing after a customer says no.
It cannot ask for unnecessary high-risk personal information such as health details, government IDs or financial credentials.
It cannot submit a form, booking or purchase for a customer without explicit authorization through an approved feature, and it cannot give advice that legally requires a professional license.

OpenAI also says it weighs your business category and the agent's intended use before allowing publication, that verification alone does not guarantee agent eligibility, and that it can suspend or remove an agent if it spots a concern.

What the numbers will and will not tell you

The insights are easy to misread, so read the definitions first.

Mentions are narrow. For a local business, a mention counts when ChatGPT shows a result for your location. For an online business, it counts when ChatGPT references your website. An OpenAI spokesperson told Digiday that naming your brand alone does not count.
Clicks are not visits. The count covers recorded link clicks from supported ChatGPT surfaces. Help text in the hub says clicks do not confirm website visits or conversions, so expect the figure to differ from what your analytics show.
Small numbers may be hidden. Insights appear only above privacy thresholds, so a very small shop may see little or nothing at first.
Share of voice is missing. According to an OpenAI spokesperson, it is not part of the beta, so you cannot compare yourself to competitors.

Treat the dashboard as a rough presence-and-referral counter, not a full picture of how ChatGPT talks about you. An advertising executive with dashboard access told Digiday the chart covers the past seven or 28 days, so compare it with the referral traffic in your own analytics over the same window.

Questions OpenAI has not answered

When Business Agents will reach other countries or business types. OpenAI gave no timeline.
How long mentions are tracked, and whether the data can be exported.
What sponsored agents will cost.
How competing claims to the same business get resolved. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz voiced concern about people hijacking profiles, and OpenAI's post does not address it.

That last gap is a practical reason to claim your profile early if you are eligible.

Who should claim now, and who can wait

If you sell online and your website already gets referral traffic from AI tools, claiming is a low-risk move. It costs nothing at the moment, and it lets you correct wrong prices, hours or product details that ChatGPT might otherwise repeat.

If you run a local service business, the Business Hub profile may still be worth claiming, since OpenAI counts a mention whenever ChatGPT shows a result for your location. The agent, however, is not available to you yet unless you also qualify as an online-service business in the U.S.

If you do not have a clean product catalog or a clear returns and shipping policy, fix that first. An agent can only be as accurate as the material you hand it, and OpenAI's policy puts responsibility for those claims on you.

A six-step plan for owners

Decide who owns the claim. Verification reportedly runs through your main business phone number or DNS, so involve whoever controls those. Make sure your legal name and address match your business license records.
Clean your product feed first. Prices and stock in the feed need to match your website. The agent policy bars invented prices, and a stale feed can create the same problem by accident.
Write your agent's instructions like a policy. Spell out what it may promise on shipping, returns and warranties, and what it must hand off to you.
Test before launching. OpenAI lets you build, test and launch, so ask the agent your twenty most common customer questions and fix every wrong answer.
Track the cost and the return. Even a free tool takes staff time. Log it in your profit and loss statement so you can judge whether it pays off if pricing arrives later.
Do not expect a ranking boost. Plan around OpenAI's stated position: better information may help ChatGPT surface you in relevant conversations, but claiming does not guarantee more mentions.

If an agent ever misstates a price or a guarantee, you are the one customers will hold to it, so it is worth reviewing your business insurance coverage for advertising and online liability questions.

The bottom line

Businesses in ChatGPT is a low-cost way to correct how ChatGPT describes you and, for eligible U.S. online sellers, to test a customer-facing agent. It is a beta with thin metrics, no published pricing for ads, and a policy that holds you responsible for what your agent says. Claim your profile, fix your feed, and test carefully before you let an AI speak for your brand.

Sources

The Next Web: OpenAI lets businesses claim ChatGPT profiles and launch their own agents (Nov. 10, 2026)
Relevant Audience: Businesses in ChatGPT, Business Hub, Insights and Agents (Nov. 11, 2026), summarizing reporting from Digiday and Search Engine Roundtable
PYMNTS: OpenAI Gives Businesses New Tools to Reach ChatGPT Users (Nov. 10, 2026)

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