OpenAI announced “Businesses in ChatGPT” on Tuesday, a bundle of business-facing features in beta. The most visible piece: verified Business Agents that represent a brand and that you talk to inside the chat, for things like comparing two products. It is open first to “eligible” e-commerce and online service businesses in the US.
What it looks like in a conversation
If a company shows up in a ChatGPT response and has set up an agent, you can start a conversation with that agent. You ask about its offerings and follow up, for instance on the difference between two products. The company writes the agent’s instructions and supplies context about its own business.
Those conversations are clearly labelled and kept separate from your main thread, OpenAI says. So people can tell they are really talking to the brand’s agent, companies can claim their organisation and get verified through a new Business Hub. OpenAI will not say how that verification works, since there are different methods for different kinds of business, VP of monetization Benji Shomair explained in a press briefing.
The Business Hub doubles as an analytics tool. Companies can see which ChatGPT responses mention them and which “discovery topics” bring people to them.
“Today’s announcement is an early step in bringing businesses more deeply into ChatGPT,” OpenAI writes. “We’re starting with the foundations: accurate business information, useful insights and conversations that help people make informed decisions.”
What a brand agent changes inside an answer
Until now, ChatGPT handled a product question as an intermediary summarising sources. With a Business Agent, a second speaker enters the same surface, commissioned and instructed by the brand. It is labelled, and it is separate, and it sits exactly where you are about to make a decision.
The fact that the feature was presented by the VP of monetization places it. The Business Hub hands companies precisely the metrics that turn visibility inside answers into a channel you can optimise.
Anthropic answers the same question differently
On Monday, Anthropic shipped interactive connectors: the vendor’s app opens with its own interface inside the chat and you operate it yourself. OpenAI puts a conversational partner alongside Claude’s route of a window and a click.
For readers of this site, that is the more interesting dividing line of the week. One side builds a stage for other people’s applications, the other a stage for other people’s voices. Which one serves you better depends on whether you came to get something done or to find something out.