OpenAI is letting businesses put their own AI agents inside ChatGPT. The Verge AI reports that the company is rolling out verified “Business Agents” that speak for a brand and help you with things like comparison shopping. They’re part of a new set of business features launching today in beta. US e-commerce and online service businesses that OpenAI deems “eligible” get access first.
This is OpenAI’s clearest move yet toward making ChatGPT a place where brands meet customers, not just a place where people ask questions. Here’s what’s included and why it matters.
Business Agents show up when the brand does
You don’t go looking for these agents. If ChatGPT mentions a business in an answer and that business has built an agent, you can start a chat with it. From there you can ask about what the company offers and follow up with questions, like how two of its products differ.
That timing is the clever part. The agent appears when you’re already weighing a purchase, which is when a brand most wants to be in the conversation.
Businesses decide what the agent knows and how it talks
Companies can write a Business Agent’s instructions and give it business context, so it knows how to answer customers. In practice, the agent becomes a branded sales and support rep that runs on ChatGPT.
It’s not hard to see the upside for a retailer. The product details come straight from the brand instead of being pieced together from scattered web pages.
Brand chats stay separate from your own
OpenAI says chats with Business Agents will be clearly labeled and kept separate from your main ChatGPT conversation. That matters for trust. People don’t want a brand pitch quietly blended into what they thought was a neutral answer.
Keeping those chats walled off is OpenAI’s way of saying “this part comes from the business.” Whether users notice that difference in everyday use is another question.
Business Hub handles verification
To show you’re talking to the real company and not an impersonator, businesses can claim their organization and get verified through a feature called Business Hub. OpenAI isn’t sharing how verification works. Benji Shomair, OpenAI’s VP of monetization, said in a press briefing that the methods vary from business to business.
That lack of detail is the biggest caveat in this launch. Verification only means something if it’s hard to fake, and for now we have to take OpenAI’s word for it.
Brands get analytics on how ChatGPT talks about them
Business Hub also gives companies insights, including how often they’re mentioned in ChatGPT responses and the top “discovery topics” where they come up. For marketers, this is a big deal. Visibility in AI answers has mostly been guesswork, and this gives them an official view, at least inside ChatGPT.
You can expect marketing teams to start tracking these numbers the way they track search rankings today.
This is a foundation, not the finished product
OpenAI calls this “an early step in bringing businesses more deeply into ChatGPT.” In its blog post, the company says it’s “starting with the foundations: accurate business information, useful insights and conversations that help people make informed decisions.” Later, it plans to “explore more ways for businesses to connect with customers, directly or through agents and in ChatGPT and beyond.”
The Verge didn’t report any pricing, and the rollout is limited to eligible US businesses for now. It’s worth noticing that a VP of monetization presented the launch. However it’s framed, this is part of OpenAI’s plan to make money from commerce in ChatGPT.
Why it matters
For years, brands have competed for spots on Google’s results page. Now the competition is moving into AI answers, and OpenAI is building its own tools around that. If Business Agents catch on, “being found” will mean more than showing up in a response. It will also mean having an agent ready to keep the conversation going.
The open questions are about trust and neutrality: how strict verification really is, and whether ChatGPT can keep its answers fair once businesses have a stake in them. The full details are in The Verge’s original report.