OpenAI launches Business Hub and agents for brands in ChatGPT

OpenAI launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta on Tuesday, November 10, 2026. The set of tools lets companies claim a verified profile inside ChatGPT, track how often the chatbot mentions them and, for some US firms, deploy an AI agent that talks to prospective customers. OpenAI says ChatGPT is used by 1.2 billion people each week, according to PYMNTS, Unite.AI and The Next Web. The Decoder compares the service to Google's business profile tool, which lets companies manage how they appear in Google Search and Maps.

The launch has two layers. Business Hub is the management layer, open to eligible businesses wherever ChatGPT is available, including Europe according to Trending Topics. Business Agents are the conversational layer and, for now, are limited to eligible e-commerce and online-service companies in the United States. We could not read OpenAI's own announcement, which returned an access error; the details below come from The Decoder and four other outlets that report on it.

What the Business Hub does

After verification, a company can update its key details and upload a product feed with prices and availability. Verified profiles get a blue check. Shopify merchants can connect their store through Business Hub or the Shopify admin, and eligible Shopify products are already in ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, according to PYMNTS. Unite.AI adds that initial claiming is limited to businesses with a website, and that existing OpenAI Enterprise customers and advertisers can work directly with an OpenAI representative.

The hub also reports aggregated figures:

• how many times the business is mentioned in ChatGPT answers;
• how many clicks its website receives from ChatGPT;
• "discovery topics", the common themes of conversations in which its website is cited.

OpenAI says businesses do not see individual conversations or chats with Business Agents, and that figures only appear once activity reaches aggregation thresholds. The blue check has limits. According to Unite.AI, claiming a profile does not guarantee higher placement or sales, ChatGPT keeps making independent recommendations, and OpenAI says it does not verify every detail a business supplies or settle every factual dispute.

Business Agents and their rules

Once a profile is claimed, an eligible company can build, test and launch an agent. When a business appears in a ChatGPT answer, the user can open its profile and start a separate conversation with the agent, for example to ask how two products differ. The conversation is labeled and kept apart from the original chat and from ChatGPT's own answers. The agent relies on guidelines set by the business, plus its product and policy information. Business verification alone does not guarantee that an agent is approved: OpenAI looks at the business category and the intended use, per Unite.AI.

Under OpenAI's Business Agents Policy, as summarized by Unite.AI:

• the agent must make clear that it is an AI representing the business, not a human, an independent adviser or an OpenAI-endorsed service;
• prices, availability and material conditions must be accurate and kept current;
• false urgency, pressure after a user declines, exploitation of vulnerability and requests for unnecessary high-risk personal data are banned;
• purchases, bookings, form submissions and sharing user information require explicit authorization;
• no advice that legally requires a professional licence, and no automated high-stakes decisions without human review.

OpenAI can suspend or remove agents over policy concerns. For now buyers are sent to the brand's own website, and The Next Web reports that OpenAI is building agent payments with Visa.

Ads, competitors and open questions

Businesses can also sponsor their agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, so that a click on an ad leads straight into a conversation with the brand's agent. According to Unite.AI, this builds on Sponsored Agents, which OpenAI began testing on September 16 with select US advertisers. The Next Web, citing Digiday, reports that OpenAI says paying does not change how often ChatGPT recommends a business. Sponsored placements are labeled and kept separate from answers.

Advertising is the backdrop. The Next Web says OpenAI's ad business passed a $1 billion annual run rate in August and now counts 100,000 advertisers. Trending Topics dates the $1 billion run rate to September and says the advertisers are in 89 countries, so the sources disagree on the month. Trending Topics also notes that the hub only covers ChatGPT, not Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI Overviews, and offers neither specific prompts nor competitor comparisons. That leaves room for startups that track visibility across several AI tools, such as OtterlyAI, Peec AI and Profound, which so far rely on simulated prompts and estimates.

Critics quoted by Trending Topics, including SEO expert Matthäus Michalik, say that when one company shows businesses their visibility in answers and also sells them paid agent conversations, it becomes harder to tell independent recommendations from advertising. They add that companies cannot see which prompts lead to their mentions. Whether users want to talk to brand agents at all is still unknown. OpenAI calls the launch an early step and plans to extend it to more markets and business categories, and later to tools for organizations with more complex needs.

What it changes for a US business

For a US e-commerce or online-service company, the practical first step is to check what ChatGPT already says about it: claim the profile, correct the details and upload an accurate product feed. The agent is a second decision, since it needs written guidelines, up-to-date prices and a path to human staff for anything the policy forbids the agent to decide. Sponsoring an agent is a separate budget choice, to weigh against the fact that the metrics only cover ChatGPT. Companies already automating customer contact can compare this with our overview of AI agents for business.