ChatGPT will let brands run verified agents that answer shoppers

OpenAI has introduced Businesses in ChatGPT, a beta that lets companies claim a verified presence in the chatbot and publish a Business Agent that answers questions about their products. The agents start with eligible US e-commerce and online service firms, The Verge reported.

How Business Agents and Business Hub work

When a business that has built an agent appears in a ChatGPT answer, a user can open a conversation with that agent. There they can ask about the company’s offerings and follow up with questions such as how two products differ. OpenAI says these chats are labeled and kept apart from the user’s main ChatGPT conversation.

Businesses control the agent by writing its instructions and supplying context about the company. To establish that an agent really speaks for the brand, a company claims its organization in a tool called Business Hub. According to OpenAI’s help material, claiming can use a phone number, business email, website domain or Shopify, and identity verification through the provider Persona is required before a business can publish changes, view insights or create an eligible agent. OpenAI VP of monetization Benji Shomair told reporters that methods differ by business type, and the company has not given more detail.

Once verified, a business can update its details and add product feeds with current prices and availability. Business Hub also reports aggregated figures: how often the company is mentioned in ChatGPT answers, website clicks, and the top “discovery topics” where it shows up. OpenAI says it does not share people’s conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses.

Who can use it now

The agents themselves are limited to eligible e-commerce and online service businesses in the US. OpenAI’s community post says eligible businesses wherever ChatGPT is available can start by claiming their listing in Business Hub. The sources do not say what makes a company eligible for an agent, and none mentions a price for the beta.

For shoppers, little changes unless a brand has published an agent: the feature appears only when such a business shows up in a response. Agents explain products and policies and point to the company’s own site, where the purchase or other action takes place, according to OpenAI’s help center.

A step away from ChatGPT as a storefront

The launch marks a different bet from OpenAI’s earlier commerce effort. TechCrunch reported that the company retired its commission-based checkout, including a checkout cart, in March, and compared the new business profiles to Google’s. Where checkout tried to complete the sale inside ChatGPT, these agents hand the customer back to the merchant’s website.

The move also adds a commercial layer that is not purely informational. OpenAI’s help center says businesses can sponsor their Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, though publishing an agent does not by itself authorize paid advertising. OpenAI’s terms also say it may supplement, edit or replace business information with other sources, and that by using Business Hub a company agrees OpenAI’s AI assistant may place calls to it on behalf of users, which users can opt out of. Those terms are worth reading closely for any firm claiming a listing.

The timing sits alongside OpenAI’s funding story. We reported that the company was reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion, below the $1.4 trillion it wanted, and revenue lines such as ads and merchant tools are one way a chatbot company can broaden income. OpenAI itself draws no such link.

What the announcement leaves unproven

Several points rest on OpenAI’s own description. The company says the beta is “an early step in bringing businesses more deeply into ChatGPT,” and it has not published results on how accurate the agents are, how verification fares against impersonation, or how many businesses qualify. How it handles disputes when an agent’s answer conflicts with its own account of a product is also not described in the material we read.

OpenAI says it will explore more ways for businesses to connect with customers, directly or through agents, in ChatGPT and beyond. For now, readers can expect a small set of US merchants first, with the wider rollout, eligibility rules and any costs still to be spelled out. For background on how agents connect to outside tools and data, see our explainer on the Model Context Protocol.