OpenAI turns ChatGPT into a storefront for businesses

The launch marks a deliberate shift in the function of ChatGPT. A service that began as a general-purpose conversational assistant is now also a place where commercial entities can maintain a presence, be discovered by users and respond to customer enquiries. With 1.2 billion people using ChatGPT each week, according to OpenAI, the audience available to participating businesses is considerable.

What launched

Businesses in ChatGPT comprises three connected elements: a verified business profile, aggregated performance insights and a labelled conversational agent known as a Business Agent.

A business can claim a verified profile through a new Business Hub inside ChatGPT. Once claimed, the profile allows the business to update its key details and to add self-service product feeds that include pricing and availability information. Any eligible business in a region where ChatGPT is available can claim a profile, according to OpenAI.

The second element is an insights dashboard. Businesses receive aggregated data on how often they are mentioned in ChatGPT, how many website clicks their presence generates and which topics lead users to discover them. OpenAI states that individual conversations are not shared with businesses. The data is therefore presented at the aggregate level, a distinction that matters for user privacy, since the conversations that produce the insights remain inaccessible to the businesses that benefit from them.

The third element is the Business Agent. This is a labelled artificial intelligence chat that operates inside ChatGPT and answers customer questions using the business's own product and policy information. OpenAI describes the agent as clearly separate from ChatGPT's independent answers, a separation intended to make clear when a response comes from the business rather than from the model itself. At launch, Business Agents are available only to eligible e-commerce and online-service businesses in the United States.

What the agents cannot do

The limits placed on Business Agents are as significant as their capabilities. According to OpenAI, an agent cannot complete a purchase, take a booking or check the status of an order. A customer who wishes to carry out one of those actions must still be directed elsewhere, presumably to the business's own website or application.

This constraint defines the scope of the launch. Businesses in ChatGPT is, at this stage, a discovery and information channel rather than a transactional one. Users can learn about a business, examine its products and ask questions about its policies, but the completion of a commercial transaction remains outside the chatbot.

The limitation also shapes the competitive position of the feature. ChatGPT is not yet a marketplace in the full sense. Its value to a business lies in visibility and in the handling of routine enquiries, not in the closing of sales.

Advertising enters the conversation

Businesses can also sponsor their Business Agent as a destination within ChatGPT Ads. Such placements are labelled, according to OpenAI, so that users can distinguish sponsored content from organic results.

The introduction of labelled advertising destinations inside the chatbot represents a further step in the commercialisation of ChatGPT. OpenAI has previously announced advertising in ChatGPT, and the ability to sponsor a Business Agent extends that model: a business can pay to place its conversational agent in front of users who are already engaged in related enquiries.

OpenAI did not state a price for claiming a business profile or for operating a Business Agent. The company also did not disclose the pricing structure for sponsored Business Agent destinations.

Why this matters

The scale of ChatGPT's audience is the central fact behind this launch. With 1.2 billion weekly users, according to OpenAI, the chatbot is now one of the largest consumer surfaces on the internet. A business presence inside it offers access to users at the moment they are asking questions, rather than after they have navigated to a search engine or a marketplace.

For businesses, the appeal is twofold. First, the verified profile and product feeds create a structured presence that users can encounter during ordinary conversation. Second, the Business Agent can answer routine customer questions without human intervention, drawing on the business's own information rather than on the model's general knowledge.

For users, the change introduces a new distinction to observe. Responses from a Business Agent are labelled and separated from ChatGPT's independent answers, but both appear within the same interface. The clarity of that separation will determine whether users can readily tell when they are speaking with a business's representative rather than with the assistant itself.

The privacy arrangement also deserves attention. OpenAI states that businesses receive only aggregated insights and not individual conversations. That boundary, if maintained, limits the data available to businesses while still giving them a measure of how often they are mentioned and discovered.

What comes next

The immediate questions concern expansion. Business Agents are currently limited to eligible e-commerce and online-service businesses in the United States, and the agents cannot yet complete transactions. Whether OpenAI extends the programme to other business categories, other countries and transactional functions will determine how far Businesses in ChatGPT develops beyond its beta form.

Also unresolved is the effect on the businesses that already depend on search engines and marketplaces for discovery. If a substantial share of product research migrates into conversational interfaces, the verified profile inside ChatGPT could become a standard part of a business's online presence, alongside its website and its listings on established platforms.

For now, the launch is a measured one: a beta programme, a limited initial category of businesses, and a clear set of capabilities and limits. Its significance lies less in what it does today than in the direction it indicates. OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT not only as a tool for answering questions, but as a place where commerce takes place.