ChatGPT Now Lets Businesses Claim Their Page and Put an SI Salesperson Inside the Chat

If you’ve ever claimed your shop on Google, you already get the idea. ChatGPT now wants businesses to do the same thing inside the chatbot, and it’s adding a twist Google never had: a store’s own SI helper that can talk to shoppers right there in the chat.

OpenAI rolled out what it calls Businesses in ChatGPT on Tuesday. It’s a beta, so it’s early. But the pitch is big. OpenAI says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people every week, and it wants the companies those people ask about to manage how they show up.

There are two pieces. The first is a Business Hub, where an owner can claim the company’s listing, fix the details and add a feed of products with prices and what’s in stock. The second is a Business Agent, a chatbot that answers customer questions using information the business supplies. That second part is only open to certain U.S. online stores and online service companies for now, according to OpenAI’s announcement.

The shopper’s side of the screen

Here’s how it plays out if you’re the one shopping. Say you ask ChatGPT to compare a few brands of standing desks. One of them shows up in the answer. You click it and land on that company’s ChatGPT profile. If the company has set up an agent, you can open a separate chat with it and ask your follow-up questions, like whether a model will fit your room or if they take returns on sale items.

OpenAI says that chat is clearly labeled, kept apart from your original conversation, and “distinct from ChatGPT’s independent answers.” In other words, when you’re talking to the store, you should know you’re talking to the store.

That label matters. A salesperson is a salesperson, even when it’s software. The business writes the rules for its agent and feeds it the facts, VentureBeat reported. So the agent is there to help you buy from that company, not to tell you a competitor is cheaper.

What owners get, and what they have to prove

Claiming a listing isn’t instant. Depending on the business, OpenAI checks the claim through a business phone number, a work email, the company’s website domain or a Shopify account. After that, whoever runs the listing has to pass a separate ID check through a company called Persona before they can change anything, connect a product feed, see the numbers or build an agent. Once that’s done, the listing gets a blue check.

Shopify sellers get the easiest path. Their products were already showing up in ChatGPT through Shopify’s catalog, and now they can connect their store straight from Business Hub or from Shopify’s own admin page.

Owners also get a dashboard. It shows how many times ChatGPT mentioned the business, how many people clicked through to its website and the common topics in chats that cited it, covering the past 28 days. OpenAI says it won’t hand over anyone’s actual chats. “We don’t share users’ conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses,” the company said. The numbers only show up once there’s enough activity to protect people’s privacy.

One detail small sellers should know: a mention counts differently depending on the kind of business. For an online store, ChatGPT has to point to its website. For a local shop, just showing up in a result counts, even if nobody opens the listing, VentureBeat noted. So a corner bakery and an online shoe store can’t compare their numbers head to head.

Free for now

Claiming a profile and publishing an agent are free at launch, according to Digiday’s briefing with OpenAI’s head of monetization, Benji Shomair, as VentureBeat reported. Shomair left the door open to charging later.

There’s money in it for OpenAI either way. Businesses can pay to sponsor their agent and use it as the landing spot for ChatGPT ads. OpenAI says those placements are labeled and kept separate from ChatGPT’s own answers. Per VentureBeat, that ad format is still a limited test with a small group of advertisers.

OpenAI also says claiming a listing doesn’t buy better placement. ChatGPT will keep making its own recommendations, and connecting a product feed doesn’t guarantee it will recommend you, the company’s help page says.

Second swing at shopping

This isn’t OpenAI’s first run at becoming a place to shop. It tried selling products right inside ChatGPT, with a checkout cart and a commission on each sale. That effort never took off, and OpenAI retired it in March, according to TechCrunch.

This time the plan looks a lot more like Google’s playbook. Get the business listings right, give owners a dashboard, and sell ads on top. TechCrunch put it plainly, saying the move makes ChatGPT “just a little bit more like Google.”

OpenAI says it’s only getting started. “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,” the company said. It plans to bring the profiles and agents to more countries and more kinds of businesses over time.

For a small business owner, the math is simple. If your customers are already asking a chatbot where to buy, it’s worth five minutes to make sure the chatbot has your hours, prices and return policy right. Whether a store’s SI salesperson actually closes more sales is the part nobody knows yet, and the only real answer will show up in each seller’s own order numbers.