Businesses in ChatGPT: claim your profile, then fix the page the click lands on

The short answer

We have argued that what an AI assistant can find, read and act on is becoming the conversion layer. This launch is the clearest proof yet from the largest assistant. OpenAI is not replacing websites with profiles. It is counting how often it cites them, and sending the decision back to them.

What is Businesses in ChatGPT?

Businesses in ChatGPT is OpenAI's beta programme for companies, announced on 10 November 2026. It has two parts. Business Hub lets a business claim and verify its profile, keep its details current and see aggregated insights. Business Agents let eligible US businesses publish an assistant that answers questions about their products and policies inside ChatGPT.

OpenAI frames it around reach. Its announcement says the programme connects businesses with "the 1.2 billion people who use ChatGPT each week" (OpenAI). Once verified, a business can "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 OpenAI notes that eligible Shopify products are already in ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, which our guide to Shopify agentic commerce covers.

How do you claim your business in ChatGPT?

You open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar, search for your business by name, select the matching listing and verify that you are entitled to manage it. OpenAI offers verification by business phone, business email, a DNS record on your website domain, or a Shopify store connection. OpenAI then reviews the claim and emails a decision (OpenAI Help Center).

Claiming is open now. OpenAI's own page, Businesses in ChatGPT, carries the "Claim your business" button, and it opens Business Hub at chatgpt.com/business-hub. OpenAI says claiming is "initially available to eligible businesses with a website". Here is the order of work:

1. Open Business Hub. Go to chatgpt.com/business-hub, or choose Business Hub in the ChatGPT sidebar, and sign in with the account the business will keep. Use a company login, not a staff member's personal one.
2. Find your business. Search by name and select the matching listing. If there is no listing, an eligible online business may be able to add itself.
3. Prove you can manage it. Pick one method: business phone, business email, a TXT record on your website domain, or a Shopify store connection.
4. Wait for the decision. OpenAI reviews the claim and emails the result.
5. Pass identity verification. The person managing the profile completes the Persona check. Have government ID, business registration details and proof of authority ready.
6. Correct your details and connect your products. Update the profile, then add a product feed by CSV, hosted URL or Shopify if you sell products.
7. Publish an agent, if you are eligible. For now that means ecommerce and online service businesses in the US. Preview it, then publish.

Steps 1 to 4 claim the profile. Step 5 is the second gate. To publish changes, connect a product feed, see insights or build an agent, the person managing the profile must also pass identity verification through Persona, which may ask for government ID, business registration details and proof of authority. The blue verified badge appears only after that check is approved.

Three details matter for anyone running a business or managing one for a client:

• Ownership stays with the business. The admin who claimed the profile can add teammates and grant an agency access. OpenAI says not to forward a personal claim invitation to someone else.
• Brands and locations are separate. Each distinct brand is managed on its own, and claiming the main brand does not claim its locations.
• Local shops have a narrower path. Local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing US listing. An eligible online business may be able to add itself if no listing exists.

The domain option is the one that touches the website. It asks for a TXT record in your DNS settings. If an agency or IT provider manages your domain, they will need to add it for you, so it is worth asking them now rather than at the moment you want to publish.

What can a Business Agent do, and what can't it?

A Business Agent answers customer questions using information the business provides, such as product details and return policies. It runs in a separate chat that is labelled and distinct from ChatGPT's own answers. It cannot complete purchases, make bookings or check a customer's order. OpenAI's help article says it explains products and policies and links to your website, "where customers complete those actions" (OpenAI Help Center).

That limit is the most important fact in the launch for anyone who cares about conversion. Here is how the pieces fit:

Every row ends on the website. The agent can warm a shopper up, compare two products and answer the returns question. Then it hands over a link. If the page behind that link is slow, generic, or asks the visitor to start again, the warm-up is wasted.

Does claiming your profile make ChatGPT recommend you more?

No. OpenAI says claiming lets you manage the information you provide, but "doesn't guarantee increased visibility" or give you control over ChatGPT's independent recommendations. Advertising does not influence those answers either. Connecting a product feed does not guarantee ChatGPT recommends your products, and ChatGPT may still draw on other sources when it answers questions about you.

That last point is the one most coverage has skipped. Your profile is one input. The other inputs are what ChatGPT can read about you elsewhere, and the largest of those is your own website. Our checklist for getting cited by ChatGPT covers how to be one of the sources it trusts.

How does Business Hub count mentions and clicks?

For an online business, a mention counts only "when ChatGPT references the business's website". The brand name alone does not count. For a local business, a mention counts when ChatGPT shows a result for that location. Insights also report website clicks and discovery topics, the common themes in answers that mentioned or cited the business (OpenAI Help Center).

Read that definition again. OpenAI's own metric for whether an online business is present in ChatGPT is a reference to its website. A business whose site cannot be read by ChatGPT's search crawler has a profile with nothing behind it.

OpenAI's crawler documentation is direct about this. Sites that block OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers", though they can still appear as navigational links. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and allowing requests from its published IP ranges (OpenAI). Many sites block it without knowing, through a security plugin, a firewall rule or a default bot setting at their CDN. The free AI crawler access checker shows which AI crawlers your robots.txt and server let in.

Two cautions on the numbers. OpenAI says insights are aggregated and appear only when there are enough conversations to meet a threshold, and that a blank metric "doesn't necessarily mean zero activity". So a small business may see nothing for a while. And a click reported in Business Hub is not an enquiry. Whether those visits became sales is a question only your own analytics and your own pages can answer.

Why does this matter for a business website?

Because the customer who arrives from ChatGPT is different from the one who arrives from a search results page. They have already asked questions, compared options and, if you have an agent, heard your returns policy. They are further along. A visitor who has done the research elsewhere does not want to do it again on your site. They want the product, the price, the next step and proof that you are who ChatGPT said you were.

That raises the cost of every weak page. A visitor from ChatGPT who lands on a homepage carousel instead of the product they asked about has to start again. A visitor whose agent said "free returns within 30 days" and then finds a different policy on the site stops trusting both. A visitor who reaches a contact form that does not work on a phone leaves without a trace, and Business Hub still records a successful click.

Consistency is the new risk. Your profile, your product feed, your agent's instructions and your website now describe the same business in four places. When they disagree, the visitor notices. Product feeds and policies are the obvious place to start. On a WooCommerce store, keeping one clean product feed that matches the prices and stock on the site is a routine job, the kind a WordPress specialist such as WP Creative would set up once rather than leave to manual exports.

The agentic shift is broader than ChatGPT. Assistants from Google, Meta and others now visit websites on a person's behalf, and not all of them announce themselves, as our guide to AI agent detection shows. Microsoft Clarity's study of 5.2 million agent sessions, covered in our piece on AI agent analytics, found agents head for search, booking and checkout far more than people do. Cloudflare now lets a site set terms for each of them, which our guide to Cloudflare's AI agent controls walks through. Chrome's browser is filling in forms with data from the visitor's inbox, which our piece on Chrome's Gemini autofill explains. Business Hub adds a third route: the assistant introduces you, then sends a person who is ready to act.

Where is this heading?

Our view: ChatGPT is building the layer above the website, not a replacement for it. These are forecasts, not facts.

• Profiles will become table stakes. Today claiming is optional and early. Within a year we expect an unclaimed, unverified profile to look the way an unclaimed Google Business Profile looks now: a sign nobody is minding the shop.
• Agents will move closer to the transaction. OpenAI says it plans to expand to more markets and categories and to build tools for more complex needs. We expect bookings and order look-ups to follow. When they do, the agent will need structured, accurate data from your systems, and the website will still carry the trust, the detail and the parts no agent is allowed to do.
• Measurement will lag. Business Hub gives counts, not conversions. The businesses that win will be the ones that join ChatGPT clicks to enquiries and sales in their own data, and fix the pages where those clicks stall.

The risk is not missing a directory listing. It is paying for visibility, in time or ad spend, and then losing the customer on a page that was never built for someone who already knows what they want.

What to do next

1. Claim your profile in Business Hub at chatgpt.com/business-hub and verify it. If you plan to use the domain method, ask whoever manages your DNS to add the TXT record. Keep ownership with the business and invite your agency as a teammate.
2. Check that ChatGPT can read your site. Run the AI crawler access checker and confirm OAI-SearchBot is allowed in robots.txt and not blocked by your firewall or CDN.
3. Make every key page readable without scripts. Run the agent readiness check on your product, service and contact pages. A page that renders its content only in JavaScript gives a crawler little to cite.
4. Make your profile, feed, agent and website say the same thing. Prices, stock, delivery and returns policies first. Fix the website copy before you write the agent's instructions, so the agent repeats what the page says.
5. Land ChatGPT visitors on the right page. The page behind each link should answer the question the visitor already asked: the product, the price, the policy and one clear next step.
6. Measure clicks against outcomes. Tag and segment ChatGPT referrals in your analytics, and compare the enquiry or sales rate of those visits with your other channels. A high click count with a low conversion rate points at the landing page, not the profile.

Frequently asked questions

Is Business Hub available in Australia?

Business Hub is open to any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available, which includes Australia, subject to the verification methods supported for your business. Business Agents are limited for now to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US. OpenAI has said it plans to expand to more markets over time but has not given dates.

Does it cost anything to claim a business in ChatGPT?

Not at launch. OpenAI's help article says you do not need an Ads account or a ChatGPT Enterprise agreement to claim an eligible business, and VentureBeat reports that claiming a profile and publishing a Business Agent are free at launch. Sponsoring an agent as an ad destination is a separate, paid advertising product in a limited test.

Can a ChatGPT Business Agent take orders or bookings?

No. In the current beta, a Business Agent explains products and policies and links to the business's website, where customers buy, book or check an order. It also does not use data from any separate ChatGPT app or plugin the business has. That makes the landing page, not the agent, the place the sale is won or lost.

Will claiming my profile get my business recommended more often?

OpenAI says it will not. Claiming lets you correct the information you provide, but it does not guarantee more visibility or control ChatGPT's independent recommendations, and ads do not influence those answers. Being cited depends on what ChatGPT can read about you, which is why your website's crawl access and content still matter most.