How to Claim Your Business in ChatGPT, and What Business Hub Counts.

On November 10, OpenAI opened Businesses in ChatGPT in beta. Through a tool called Business Hub, a business can claim its listing in ChatGPT, keep its details and products current, and see how often ChatGPT mentions it. Eligible online stores and online service businesses in the United States can also switch on a Business Agent that answers customer questions inside ChatGPT. "Any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available can claim their business in ChatGPT through Business Hub," OpenAI wrote in its announcement.

The feature leaked first. On November 6, Juozas Kaziukėnas, who founded the online retail research firm Marketplace Pulse, posted a screenshot on LinkedIn of a ChatGPT banner that read "Claim your business in ChatGPT." Digiday reported on November 9 that the dashboard behind it would count mentions and clicks, and that OpenAI declined to comment.

The new part for a business is a count that comes from ChatGPT itself. Until now, an owner who wanted to know whether ChatGPT recommends the business had two imperfect sources. A vendor could ask ChatGPT sample questions and record the answers, or the site's analytics could trace visits back to a ChatGPT link. The count does not replace either one, and OpenAI says claiming a listing does not change a business's visibility in ChatGPT. What the count does do, as Digiday argued before the announcement, is give OpenAI's young ads business a number to sell against.

How to claim your business in ChatGPT

Claiming is open first to businesses with a website. OpenAI's help center adds two limits: a local store or restaurant can, for now, claim only an existing listing in the United States, and availability depends on where the business is and what it does. No ads account or ChatGPT Enterprise agreement is needed.

The help center describes three steps:

1. Claim the listing in Business Hub. OpenAI checks that the person claiming it represents the business through one of several routes, "such as phone, business email, website domain, or Shopify." The website route asks for a short text record added to the domain's address settings (DNS).
2. Wait for review. "OpenAI reviews your claim and emails you its decision."
3. Verify your identity. Before the owner can publish changes, see the counts or create a Business Agent, OpenAI requires an identity check through Persona, an identity verification company. The blue check on the business's ChatGPT profile appears once that check is approved, not when the claim is.

A Shopify store can connect from Business Hub or from its Shopify admin, and OpenAI says a business does not need a Shopify store to claim. OpenAI's existing Enterprise customers and advertisers can also go through their OpenAI representative. For a brand with several locations, claiming the main brand does not claim its locations.

The last step checks the identity of a person, so the owner, or the person who already runs the business's accounts, is the one who should complete it. A firm that offers to claim a listing on an owner's behalf still needs that person in the process.

A business that works at the customer's home or office may have to wait. Tilio, a UK web firm that tried the claim flow on November 10, reported that it offered physical locations and online stores, with services marked "coming soon." OpenAI's help center says only that availability depends on the business's location and type.

Claiming early has a defensive reason too. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable claimed a listing on launch day, saw it sit at pending, and wrote that he is "honestly nervous about people hijacking businesses on here." OpenAI's help center has a process for disputing ownership, but an owner who claims first, through the business email domain or main phone number, is less likely to need it.

What the ChatGPT Business Hub counts, and what it leaves out

Business Hub's counts cover the past 28 days and include mentions, website clicks and discovery topics, which OpenAI describes as "common themes across conversations where their website is cited."

The definition of a mention matters more than the number. For an online business, the help center says, "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. An answer that names a business without pointing to its site therefore does not add to an online business's count.

Business Hub does not show the questions. "Businesses don't receive individual prompts or consumer conversations, including chats with their business agents," the help center says, and OpenAI lists no comparison with competitors. Kaziukėnas saw the problem in the leaked version: without the questions, he wrote, it "won't help understanding why mentions/clicks are increasing or decreasing." An owner who saw mentions fall in March, for example, could not tell from Business Hub whether the cause was a competitor, a change to ChatGPT or the season.

Small businesses may see less than that. OpenAI shows the counts only "when there are enough conversations or interactions to meet certain thresholds," and the help center warns that a blank count does not necessarily mean zero activity.

Search Console, Google's free report on how a site appears in Google search, has long shown site owners the searches that led to their pages. On June 3, 2026, Google added reports that count how often a site's pages appeared in its AI answers, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. They break the count down by page, country, device and date, and Google's announcement lists no click count and no search terms for them. Some coverage calls Business Hub ChatGPT's own Search Console. It adds the click count missing from Google's AI report, but not the searches Search Console shows for Google.

Outside vendors try to supply the questions. Profound and Adthena are among the companies that sell generative engine optimization, or GEO: the work of getting a business named and cited in AI answers. According to Digiday, these vendors mostly track brand mentions by running sample questions at scale. They can show which questions name a business and which competitors appear beside it, but only for the questions they choose to test. Some of their clients now have a way to check the vendors' work. "If their estimation data was wildly erroneous, that will make us rethink paying for those tools," Farhad Divecha, who runs the agency Accuracast, told Digiday. Kaziukėnas expects the two to work together, with vendors tracking the questions and OpenAI's numbers showing whether the work pays off.

ChatGPT business agents, and who can use them

When ChatGPT names a business in an answer, people can click through to the business's ChatGPT profile. If the business has an agent, they can start a conversation with it there. OpenAI says that conversation is labeled and kept apart from the person's original chat and from ChatGPT's own answers, and that it does not share people's conversations or agent chats with the business.

The agent cannot complete a purchase, make a booking or check an order. It explains products and policies and links to the business's website. A business cannot bring an agent it built elsewhere; According to Digiday, OpenAI builds it from the business's instructions and product feed. "We aren't allowing folks to bring their own agents," Benji Shomair, OpenAI's vice president of monetization, told Digiday. For now Business Agents are limited to online stores and online service businesses in the United States that have a website and meet the eligibility rules in OpenAI's Business Agents policy, and OpenAI says verification alone does not make a business eligible. A local service business, such as a plumber or a roofer, is not in either category OpenAI names.

An agent answers with whatever the business has given it: return windows, delivery areas, prices, what a warranty covers. A stale fact there reaches a customer as a wrong answer, at the moment they are deciding. The piece on AI shopping agents looks at that risk from the buyer's side. Keeping those facts current is the same work that keeps a Google listing accurate, and the guide to a Google Business Profile covers what that listing holds. The explainer on Meta business verification shows how another large platform checks who represents a business.

What Business Hub could mean for ChatGPT's ad sales

OpenAI says claiming, Business Agents and advertising are separate, and that "Claiming does not guarantee higher placement or sales." Its October 21 ads announcement says ads "are clearly labeled and separate from ChatGPT's answers," and that "advertising does not influence the answers ChatGPT provides."

OpenAI's November 10 pages connect them in one place: a business can sponsor its Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, in placements labeled as sponsored. Shomair told Digiday the agent behind a sponsored placement should match the free one: "The sponsored agent is the paid experience, but the agent that sits behind it should be the same." OpenAI's pages list no price, and Digiday describes the agents as free for now. Asked whether that will last, he said, "I think it'll depend on the directions that they go."

Digiday reasoned before the announcement that marketers who watch a number want it to climb, and that the lever OpenAI charges for is a sponsored placement. It pointed to a Google precedent. Google Business Profile put local businesses on Google's map, and Search Console showed site owners how they did in organic search. Both gave Google's sales teams an easier route to selling them ads.

OpenAI's ads business has grown fast enough to make the argument plausible. According to the company's own posts:

• On February 9, 2026, it began testing ads in the United States for logged in adults on the Free and Go plans. ChatGPT's Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education plans showed no ads.
• In May, it introduced Ads Manager, its self service tool for buying ads. It later said that small and medium businesses now account for "a material share of the business."
• On August 31, it said ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate less than 200 days after launch. A run rate is a pace of yearly revenue, not a year of sales.
• On October 21, it said more than 100,000 advertisers had run campaigns since launch and that ads were available in 89 countries.

The figures track the growth of its ads business, not whether ads pay off for any one business.

If ads do not influence answers, as OpenAI says, buying them should not raise the count of answers that cite a business. OpenAI has not said whether clicks from sponsored placements appear in Business Hub's click count. A falling count alone is then no reason to buy ads. Ads in ChatGPT deserve the same test as any other channel: what they cost against the calls, form requests and sales they bring.

What an owner can do this week

Claim the listing if the business qualifies. Claiming puts the business's own details in front of people who open its profile, and after the identity check it shows the counts. A local store or restaurant should look for its existing listing rather than create one.

Record a starting point. Business Hub shows only the past 28 days, so a longer record made now gives its numbers something to compare against. Google Analytics, Google's free tool that counts what visitors do on a site, has a channel called AI Assistant for visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and similar tools. Write down that channel's visits, and the sales or inquiries that followed, for each of the last three months. The guide to Google Analytics shows where the channel report sits. Visits that arrive with no record of where they came from land under Direct, so the figure may run low.

Make the facts match everywhere. ChatGPT's answers draw on what is published about a business, and an agent draws on the details and product feed the business provides. Before entering anything, match the hours, service area, prices and policies on the site, the Shopify store and the Google listing. How other sites describe a business may also shape what AI tools say about it, which the piece on public relations in AI search examines. The broader work of earning mentions is the subject of the explainer on generative engine optimization.

Check that ChatGPT search can read the site. Because an online business's mentions count only when ChatGPT points to its website, the site should be readable by the program OpenAI uses for ChatGPT search. A short settings file on the site, and any security service that screens visitors, decide that. ChatGPT will not show a site that refuses it in search answers, OpenAI says, though the site can still appear as a navigational link. The check takes a few minutes.

The OAI-SearchBot setting to check

OpenAI's documentation names four programs that visit sites. The one that matters here is OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI says it uses "to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT's search features." The others are GPTBot, which gathers content that may train OpenAI's models; a program that checks the landing pages of ads bought in ChatGPT; and ChatGPT-User, which visits a page when a person's request calls for it.

Open the site's robots.txt file at the root of the domain (for example, example.com/robots.txt). Look for a group of rules that names OAI-SearchBot as its user agent. If the line under it reads "Disallow: /", the site is closed to ChatGPT search. Delete that group, or change the line to "Allow: /". If no group names OAI-SearchBot, check the group marked with an asterisk, which applies to every user agent. If that group reads "Disallow: /", add a separate group for OAI-SearchBot with "Allow: /".

A rule that blocks GPTBot is a separate choice, and blocking it does not remove a site from ChatGPT search. If a firewall or a security service such as Cloudflare screens visitors, allow the IP addresses OpenAI publishes for OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI's help center lists that as a condition for appearing in search. OpenAI says changes to robots.txt take about 24 hours to reach its search systems.