I’ll admit, I was tipped off that this one was coming, and OpenAI put it live today. It's called Businesses in ChatGPT, it's in beta, and the piece I care about most here is probably Business Hub.

A company can now claim its business inside ChatGPT, get verified, update what ChatGPT has on file about it, and add a product feed with pricing and availability. It can also see how many times ChatGPT mentioned it and how many people clicked through to its site. Eligible U.S. e-commerce and online service businesses can go one step further and publish a Business Agent, a labeled chat that talks to shoppers for the brand.

The profile comes first. You claim the listing, verify that you own it, and edit the key details. You can have a profile without an agent. Enterprise customers and advertisers claim through their OpenAI rep, and Shopify merchants can connect through the Hub or the Shopify admin.

The insights are aggregated mentions, views and website clicks, plus discovery topics according to Digiday. OpenAI says it doesn't pass users' conversations or agent chats along to businesses, and low-volume numbers can be withheld for privacy.

The agent runs on the instructions and product feed the business gives it, and you can't bring your own. When a shopper is ready to buy, it sends them to the brand's site and the business decides how to close the sale. A business can also sponsor the agent and make it the landing spot for labeled ChatGPT Ads. Digiday reports the sponsored agent is the same agent as the free one, and that OpenAI started testing the ad version in September.

All of it is free (for now). OpenAI's VP of monetization didn't rule out charging later.

Until today, what a brand knew about its ChatGPT presence came from two places: referral traffic in analytics (OpenAI tags links from ChatGPT search with utm_source=chatgpt.com, which were very inconsistent) and tools that run prompts and log the answers. Both are useful, but neither was OpenAI reporting on how often it named you. Now there's a count from OpenAI itself. People will call this Search Console for ChatGPT, and the comparison holds up to a point. Search Console gives you queries, while the Hub gives you totals and themes and the prompts stay with OpenAI.

The profile and feed matter for a simple reason. When an AI answer got your price or hours wrong, you had nobody to tell. Now there's a place to fix it and keep it current, and if you sell products, pricing and availability are what I'd get right first.

On the agent, OpenAI holds the agent itself and the transcripts. The business supplies instructions and a feed, so those two things decide how the brand comes across in that chat.

On paid versus organic, OpenAI says the core product has to stay objective and that a business shouldn't be able to change how often it appears. I'd take that as their stated position and use your own numbers to see whether it holds up.

Digiday reports how the counting works. For an online business, a mention counts when ChatGPT references your website, and a brand name alone doesn’t count. Clicks are clicks on links from supported ChatGPT surfaces, so they aren’t completed visits or purchases. An ad exec with access says the chart covers seven or 28 days, and OpenAI wouldn’t say how long it keeps the data. I’d copy the numbers out every week.

I want to be very explicit: this does not replace the need for tools like Profound. The Hub covers ChatGPT only, and your buyers ask questions elsewhere too. It shows totals and themes, not the prompts behind them, and there’s no share of voice in the beta, so a rise in mentions could mean you’re gaining ground or that the whole category is growing. A tool that runs your prompts on a schedule shows you what was asked, what came back and how your competitors fared, and you own the record.

What the Hub adds is a number from the source. I’d set it next to your own tracking and watch how the two move. When they agree, you can lean on both. When they split, you have a specific question to chase.

Claim and verify the business. It's free, so there's little to lose. Then check the facts ChatGPT could pull. Name, address, hours, pricing and availability should match on your site, your store and your other listings, and I'd fix those before sending a feed. I'd also check that robots.txt isn't blocking OAI-SearchBot, OpenAI's search crawler, since mentions depend on ChatGPT referencing your site. If you qualify for an agent, I'd write its instructions the way I'd brief a new hire: what you sell, who it's for, what you don't do, and where to send someone who's ready to buy. Record your starting mentions, views and clicks right away, and leave your existing tracking running next to them.

It's a beta. OpenAI is rolling it out first to eligible U.S. ecomm and online service businesses and wouldn't give a timeline for wider availability. Features for specific kinds of business, like multi-unit companies, come later, and pricing could change. OpenAI keeps the transcripts and the agent. I'd hold the early numbers loosely until the definitions settle, since a click isn't revenue.

Taken together, the Hub gives a business a profile it maintains, data on how it shows up, an agent that speaks for it, and an ad format that points at the agent. That lines up with what Google built over many years around business profiles, merchant feeds, Search Console and ads. The comparison is mine, not OpenAI's, but OpenAI put a version of each into one launch.

For now I'd claim the profile, take a baseline, and keep whatever tracking you already run.

I’ll keep you all updated as I lean more.

Josh Grant