ChatGPT Business Hub: how to claim your business and what its numbers mean

What launched, and who can use it

On 10 November 2026 OpenAI announced Businesses in ChatGPT as a beta. It has two parts:

• Business Hub, where a business claims its profile in ChatGPT, keeps its details current and sees how often ChatGPT mentions it and sends people to its website.
• Business Agents, a chat a business can publish so customers can ask about its products and policies, in a conversation that is labelled and kept apart from ChatGPT’s own answers.

Who can use which part depends on where the business is and what it sells. As of 12 November 2026, OpenAI’s pages put it like this:

As of 12 November 2026, the help article states the local limit: “Local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing U.S. listing.” For everyone else: “Eligible businesses can claim an existing business or add one where ChatGPT is available and the required verification is supported. Availability depends on the business’s location and type.” OpenAI’s business page adds that claiming “is initially available to eligible businesses with a website”, and its profile policy that “Eligibility requirements may change over time.”

So, as of 12 November 2026, an Italian, German or French business that sells online can try to claim its profile, while a shop or restaurant in Europe cannot claim its listing yet. Either way, OpenAI’s terms say it may show a listing for a business whether or not anyone claims it, so ChatGPT may already be describing yours. The free AI scan shows whether the models behind ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok name you today.

How to claim and verify your business, step by step

The help article describes two checks. The first proves you are connected to the business. The second, with Persona, proves who you are and that you may act for it. Editing the profile, connecting a product feed, seeing insights and creating an agent all wait for the second.

1. Find the listing

Sign in to ChatGPT with the account that will manage the business, open Business Hub from the sidebar and search for the business by name. Select the listing that matches and confirm the account. As of 12 November 2026, an eligible online business whose listing is missing may see an option to add it.

If it shows Contact support, the listing is locked, and that button is how you ask OpenAI for access.

2. Prove the connection

ChatGPT shows the methods available for your business. The help article describes four:

• Business phone: a code by text message or automated call to the number shown.
• Business email: a code sent to the address associated with the business.
• Website domain: a TXT record added to your domain’s DNS settings, with the type, name or host, and value copied exactly. DNS changes can take time to show, and then you select Verify domain.
• Shopify store: you connect the store and sign in to it.

3. Wait for the claim review

“OpenAI reviews your claim and emails you its decision or a request for more information.” OpenAI gives no time for it: “Review time varies.”

4. Verify with Persona

From the business overview, select Verify with Persona and follow its steps. “You may need a government-issued ID, business registration information, and proof that you’re authorized to represent the business.” The business name, address and any registration number you give should match your official records, and that is the first thing to check if the verification fails. OpenAI reviews this step too, and answers by email.

The help article says the blue check appears once this verification is approved, and that claiming alone does not add it. OpenAI’s business page puts it more loosely, as a sign the profile has been claimed. The help article also warns that if you use Persona to create a new profile, OpenAI’s approval publishes it automatically, with no separate publishing step, so have the details ready before you start.

5. Update the profile

With both checks approved you can edit the website, description, product or service category, logo, and delivery and return policies, add a cover photo, and connect a product feed with prices and availability if you sell products. OpenAI reviews each change before it publishes it, and an update can take time to reach a listing or an answer.

Who does what: you, your web person, your agency

• Whoever manages your domain can add the DNS record. “If someone else manages your domain, ask them to add the record for you.”
• Persona checks the identity and authority of whoever goes through it, so do it yourself, or have it done by someone who can prove they may act for the business.
• After approval, the account that claimed the business is its admin. “The admin who claimed your business can add teammates in Business Hub and grant an agency access to manage the business or its agent.” Each person uses their own ChatGPT account, and OpenAI asks you not to forward your claim invitation.

So claim with a ChatGPT account the business controls, then invite your agency or web person from Business Hub.

What the Business Hub numbers mean

Once both checks are approved, Insights opens in Business Hub. “Insights show aggregate activity over the past 28 days, including mentions and website clicks.” OpenAI defines each figure:

• Mentions. “For an online business, a mention counts when ChatGPT references the business’s website. The brand name alone doesn’t count.” “For a local business, a mention counts when ChatGPT shows a result for that location, even if the customer doesn’t open the listing or visit the website.”
• Website clicks. “See how often people click through to your website.”
• Discovery topics. “See common themes in ChatGPT answers that mentioned or cited your business. These themes don’t reveal individual prompts or directly measure customer intent.”

For an online business, then, the mention count is a count of answers that reference its website, and an answer that names the brand without the site sits outside it. A blank does not have to mean zero: “A blank metric can mean activity hasn’t reached the reporting threshold, data is still being collected, or reporting is unavailable. It doesn’t necessarily mean zero activity.” OpenAI’s announcement adds that insights appear only when there are enough conversations to meet its thresholds, so a business that is rarely asked about may see blanks for a while.

What Business Hub shows, and what it does not

On the first row OpenAI is explicit: “Businesses don’t receive individual prompts or consumer conversations, including chats with their business agents.” For the other rows, the help article describes no such view.

Three of those gaps, the questions where you are missing, who is named instead and the other assistants, are what our own tools measure, in a different way: they put questions to the models behind the assistants through their APIs, while Business Hub counts what happens in ChatGPT itself. The free AI scan asks the models behind ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok, without web search, and shows whether they name you; your email opens the names given in your place. The AI visibility audit puts 20 to 40 of your buyers’ questions to four AI models and records who they name instead of you, with a list of fixes.

What claiming does not change

OpenAI’s help article says: “Claiming a profile or disputing ownership doesn’t change its visibility in ChatGPT.” Its FAQ adds: “Claiming lets you manage the information you provide about your business. It doesn’t guarantee increased visibility or give you direct control over ChatGPT’s independent recommendations.”

Claiming does not give you the only say over the profile either. OpenAI’s terms say it may add to, edit or replace the information you submit using other sources, or decline to show it. The help article puts it more simply: “ChatGPT may also use other sources when answering questions about your business.”

None of these OpenAI pages explains what makes ChatGPT cite one business and not another. What an owner can work on is their own site and how the business appears across the web, and these guides and tools cover it:

• How to get your business cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity: the pages, facts and sources an answer can draw on.
• AI crawlers, with OAI-SearchBot, and the free AI crawler checker: whether OpenAI’s crawlers can reach your pages. If you connect a product feed, OpenAI’s terms ask you to “permit OpenAI’s and its Affiliates’ crawlers and agents to access and interact with your respective websites”.
• The free AI visibility checker: whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok name you for two questions a buyer asks.
• Why ChatGPT recommended your business last month and not now: how to read answers that change from one month to the next.

Want to see who the assistants name instead of you? Run the free AI scan

Business Agents: who can have one, and what it does

As of 12 November 2026, a Business Agent is open to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US that have a website, have passed both checks and work in an industry the Business Agents Policy allows. OpenAI looks at the category and at what the agent is for before it lets one go live, and “Business verification alone does not guarantee agent eligibility.”

What it answers from

It answers from the information you give it: product details, policies such as returns, a product feed with prices and availability, and the instructions you write. You preview it with a question customers often ask, correct the information if the answer is wrong, and publish when you are ready. Customers can only chat with a published agent.

Where the sale happens

The agent cannot complete a purchase, make a booking or check an order. In the help article’s words: “The current experience lets your agent explain products and policies and link to your website, where customers complete those actions.”

What the customer sees

The agent opens from the business’s profile in a conversation of its own, labelled and kept apart from ChatGPT’s independent answers. The policy says the agent must make clear that it is AI representing the business, and forbids instructing it to invent prices, reviews or guarantees, or to keep pushing a sale after someone declines.

OpenAI also lets a business sponsor its agent as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, and says sponsored placements are clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT’s responses.

What to do this week

1. Search for your business in Business Hub and see whether a listing already exists.
2. Pick the ChatGPT account that will be the admin. It should belong to the business; your agency gets its own access later.
3. Choose the verification you can complete: a business phone or email that receives codes, or the DNS record from whoever manages your domain.
4. Get the Persona documents ready: an ID, your business registration details and proof that you may act for the business, with the name and address exactly as in your official records.
5. Write down the facts the profile should carry (website, description, category, delivery and return policies) and check that they match your website.
6. Run the free AI scan, so you have a reading of the questions and the assistants Business Hub does not report.
7. Once Insights opens, note mentions and website clicks every month. A blank means not reported yet, not necessarily zero.

As of 12 November 2026, a shop or restaurant outside the US cannot claim its listing yet: do steps 5 and 6 now, and the rest when OpenAI opens claiming where you are.

Sources

The facts about Businesses in ChatGPT in this guide come from OpenAI’s own pages, read on 12 November 2026. Quotations are from their English versions. Businesses in ChatGPT is a beta, so check the help article before you rely on an eligibility rule.

• Introducing Businesses in ChatGPT, OpenAI, 10 November 2026
• Setting up your business on ChatGPT, OpenAI Help Center
• Businesses in ChatGPT: Claim Your Business, OpenAI
• Businesses in ChatGPT policy, OpenAI, updated 10 November 2026
• Business Agents Policy, OpenAI, updated 10 November 2026
• Businesses in ChatGPT Terms, OpenAI, last updated 9 November 2026

AIGROW is not affiliated with OpenAI. It sells the AI visibility audit described above.