OpenAI on 10 November launched “Businesses” in beta within ChatGPT, letting companies claim a profile and, for eligible U.S. e-commerce and online service businesses, publish a Business Agent that shoppers can chat with, Reuters reported. Digiday reported that the Business Hub and agents are free for now.
OpenAI began testing the paid version, Sponsored Agents, with select U.S. advertisers on 16 September, Reuters reported at the time. The free route arrived 55 days later, by our arithmetic. Businesses can also sponsor their Business Agent as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, according to Reuters.
Business Pill · AI Agents Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on AI agents. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss OpenAI, ChatGPT Business Agents or ChatGPT Ads.
The key insight: OpenAI on 10 November let brands claim a ChatGPT profile and, in the U.S., publish a Business Agent, Reuters reported; Digiday reported the hub and agents are free for now. The same agent can also be sponsored as a paid ChatGPT ad. The free route came 55 days after OpenAI began testing Sponsored Agents, by our arithmetic.
Through a tool called Business Hub, companies can claim their business in ChatGPT and, once verified, update key details and add product feeds with pricing and availability, Reuters reported. The hub also shows aggregated insights, including mentions, views and website clicks.
Business Agents let people chat with an agent from a business about its products or services. OpenAI is rolling the feature out first to eligible e-commerce and online service businesses in the U.S., according to Reuters. Shopify merchants can connect their stores through Business Hub or the Shopify admin.
OpenAI’s vice president of monetization, Benji Shomair, told Digiday during a press briefing: “Think of the business agent as the organic experience”. He added: “The sponsored agent is the paid experience, but the agent that sits behind it should be the same”.
Days between steps in OpenAI’s ChatGPTbusiness tools: 55 days from the paid Sponsored Agents test (16 Sep, Reuters) to the free Business Agents launch (10 Nov, Reuters), and 1 day from Digiday’s 9 Nov report of the Insights dashboard to the 10 Nov beta. Day counts are our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
OPENAI ๐ฅ: ChatGPT Business users can now claim their businesses and build a Business Agent to answer customers’ inbound requests.
This new experience is available to eligible businesses in the US.
Earlier this year, OpenAI also introduced a capability to target custom business AI Agents from ChatGPT ads.
— ๐จ AI News | TestingCatalog (@testingcatalog) Nov 10 19:19
TestingCatalog posted at 19:19 UTC on 10 November that ChatGPT Business users can now claim their businesses and build a Business Agent to answer customers’ inbound requests, for eligible businesses in the US. The post adds that OpenAI earlier introduced a way to target custom business agents from ChatGPT ads, and says it looks like a funnel is becoming complete.
claim your business on ChatGPT and engage with customers in new ways:
OpenAI president Greg Brockman posted at 18:30 UTC on 10 November: claim your business on ChatGPT and engage with customers in new ways. This piece covers the launch from Reuters and Digiday.
One Agent, Two Ways In
The Business Agent is the free, organic way into a format OpenAI started testing as a paid ad in September, Digiday reported. Sponsored placements are labeled, according to Reuters. In September, Reuters reported that Sponsored Agents would let users start conversations with business-sponsored agents after interacting with ads in ChatGPT.
OpenAI builds the agent from the instructions and product feed a business supplies. “We aren’t allowing folks to bring their own agents”, Shomair told Digiday. When a shopper is ready to pay, the agent sends them to the brand’s own site, because “it’s up to the business on how they want to close the transaction”, he said.
Shomair said early testing of sponsored agents had shown “promising results”, particularly in the depth of conversations, according to Digiday. He did not rule out a paid model for Business Hub and agents in the future.
What Brands Can See
OpenAI said it does not share users’ conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses, and that insights are aggregated and shown only above certain thresholds, Reuters reported. Brands get the themes of conversations where they appear, Shomair told Digiday.
An OpenAI spokesperson told Digiday that “Just naming the brand doesn’t count” as a mention for an online business; a mention counts when ChatGPT references the business’s website. Digiday had reported the Insights dashboard on 9 November, one day before the beta launch. We covered that dashboard test the same day.
Shomair said a business “should not have an impact on how frequently it appears” in ChatGPT’s recommendations, according to Digiday. He said the information could help ChatGPT surface a business in more relevant conversations.
As we read the reports, OpenAI is offering one agent through two doors: an organic one that costs nothing today and a paid one sold through ChatGPT Ads. The agent behind both is built and held by OpenAI from what the business supplies, not brought in by the brand.
Benji Shomair, OpenAI vice president of monetization, to Digiday
“The sponsored agent is the paid experience, but the agent that sits behind it should be the same.”
Three Implications
FOR BRANDS SELLING ONLINE IN THE U.S. Eligible e-commerce and online service businesses can publish a Business Agent; Shopify merchants can connect through Business Hub or the Shopify admin, according to Reuters.
FOR MEASURING CHATGPT VISIBILITY Business Hub shows aggregated mentions, views and website clicks; OpenAI said it does not share user conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses, Reuters reported.
FOR AD BUDGETS OpenAI’s ads page lists cost-per-click and cost-per-impression buying through partners or a beta self-serve Ads Manager; Shomair did not rule out a paid model for Business Hub, Digiday reported.
The framework says: “The bet: pull every workflow into one agent, own the harness, own the skill marketplace on top of it, and the conversational layer becomes a feature, not a product.”
As we read it, Business Agents extend that pattern to brands: the agent that answers for a business lives inside ChatGPT and is built by OpenAI. The framework does not discuss Business Hub, Business Agents or ChatGPT Ads.
What Is Not Established
OpenAI has not said when Business Agents will reach businesses outside the U.S. or outside e-commerce and online services; Shomair declined to give a timeline, Digiday reported. OpenAI has not published usage or results figures for Sponsored Agents, nor said whether, or when, Business Hub and agents will carry a fee.
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OpenAI now offers brands the same ChatGPT agent two ways: free as an organic Business Agent and paid as a Sponsored Agent behind ChatGPT Ads, according to Reuters and Digiday. The free version came 55 days after the paid test began, by our arithmetic.
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A note on sourcing. Launch details and OpenAI’s statements come from Reuters (10 November and 16 September 2026); quotations from OpenAI’s Benji Shomair and an OpenAI spokesperson come from Digiday (10 November 2026); ad buying options come from OpenAI’s ads page. The 55-day and 1-day figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
