ChatGPT Business Hub: can your business claim its listing?

What did OpenAI launch on 10 November 2026?

Two products, both in beta. Businesses in ChatGPT is a profile a business can claim and manage through Business Hub, a new item in the ChatGPT sidebar. Business Agents are chat assistants a business can publish on that profile, starting with "eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the U.S." (OpenAI). OpenAI pitches it as a way to reach "the 1.2 billion people who use ChatGPT each week", its own figure.

In practice, when ChatGPT names a business in an answer, people can click through to that business's ChatGPT profile. Once the owner's identity is verified, the profile shows a blue check. Retailers can add a product feed with prices and stock, and any business with an agent can sponsor it as the destination of a ChatGPT ad.

For a local business, the claim and the insights are what matter today. Agents and product feeds are built for online sellers, and no local trade can publish an agent yet.

Can a local business claim its ChatGPT listing?

In the US, if ChatGPT already lists it. Elsewhere, not yet. OpenAI's help article says "Local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing U.S. listing" (OpenAI Help). Online businesses can claim or add a profile wherever ChatGPT is available and OpenAI supports the verification. The claim page says claiming is "initially available to eligible businesses with a website".

Category matters too. OpenAI's Businesses in ChatGPT policy says it may "hold off on allowing businesses in other categories" until it has the safeguards it needs, without listing which. Where you stand today:

How do you claim your business in ChatGPT?

In five steps, and the last one asks for ID. You need a ChatGPT account and the authority to represent the business; OpenAI's help article sets out the steps.

• Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar and search for your business by name.
• Pick the listing that matches yours and confirm the ChatGPT account that will manage it.
• Verify the claim with one of the methods offered: a code sent by text or automated call to the business phone, a code sent to the business email, a TXT record added to your domain's DNS, or a Shopify login.
• Wait for OpenAI's decision by email. You can cancel the claim while it is under review.
• Complete identity verification with Persona. You may need a government-issued ID, business registration details and proof that you represent the business. Until Persona approves you, you cannot publish changes, see insights or create an agent.

What if someone else claimed it, or you have several locations?

If your business is already claimed, open its profile, choose "Dispute ownership" from the menu and verify with Persona that you are authorised to represent it. A listing showing "Contact support" is locked; ask OpenAI Support for access.

Multi-location businesses get no shortcut. Each brand is managed separately, central management across brands and locations is not available, and "Claiming the main brand doesn't claim its locations". A franchise or a group with several branches claims each location on its own, or goes through an OpenAI account representative if it has one.

Agencies can help without taking over the account. The admin who claimed the business can add teammates and give an agency access to the profile or the agent, each person using their own ChatGPT account. OpenAI asks owners not to forward a personal claim invitation.

What can you change on your ChatGPT business profile?

Once both checks are approved, you can edit your website, business description, category, logo, delivery policy and return policy, and add a cover photo and other optional details. OpenAI's policy asks that your name, category, address or service area, hours, contact details and services stay accurate. Each change is reviewed before it is published, and OpenAI warns that "ChatGPT may also use other sources when answering questions about your business".

So the profile is one source among several, not a control panel. The terms say claiming "does not give you exclusive control" over the listing, and that OpenAI may "supplement, edit, or replace information using other sources". If ChatGPT gets your hours or prices wrong, fix the profile and the pages it reads; what to do when AI gets your business wrong covers the second part.

Is Business Hub the Search Console of ChatGPT?

Partly. Like Google Search Console, it shows how often you appeared and how often people clicked through to your site. Unlike it, it hides the questions, covers only 28 days and gives no position. For a local business, OpenAI counts a mention "when ChatGPT shows a result for that location, even if the customer doesn't open the listing or visit the website": closer to an impression than to a recommendation you can read.

"Discovery topics", the third metric, groups the themes of answers that mentioned or cited you. OpenAI says they "don't reveal individual prompts or directly measure customer intent". Here is how the two dashboards compare:

What does a mention count leave out?

How much the answer moves. A month of mentions adds up answers that change every time they are asked. One question in one city shows the scale: in our repeat test on 11 October 2026, we asked ChatGPT "Can you recommend a good plumber in Chicago?" 10 times, word for word. It named 14 different plumbers. The most-named came up in 8 of the 10 answers, two others in 5, and six plumbers appeared only once.

So a mention count can move with chance as well as with your work, and a business named in one answer out of ten still collects mentions. What it cannot show is why: who was named when you were not, and which pages the answer read. Those pages are rarely the ones a profile edit touches. Across our September city scans (378 ChatGPT answers, seven trades, nine cities), 27% of the sources ChatGPT cited were licensing boards, trade registers and other official bodies.

Does claiming your business help ChatGPT recommend you?

Not directly, and OpenAI says so. Its help article states that claiming "doesn't guarantee increased visibility or give you direct control over ChatGPT's independent recommendations". It adds that "Claiming a profile or disputing ownership doesn't change its visibility in ChatGPT". The terms add that OpenAI does not guarantee "any particular placement, ranking, visibility". Ads do not change the answer either; ChatGPT ads for local businesses explains what an ad buys.

What a claim can do is keep the details ChatGPT shows correct. That has value: a wrong phone number or a listing that says you close on Mondays costs customers even when you are named. Whether you are named still depends on what ChatGPT reads. In the US that includes Yelp, which told shareholders in August 2026 that its ratings and reviews "recently began powering ChatGPT's local experience". Everywhere, it includes your own website, if you let OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, read it (OpenAI).

What should you read in the terms before you accept?

Four clauses in the Businesses in ChatGPT Terms, last updated on 9 November 2026, deserve a careful read. We are not lawyers; take advice if any of them worries you.

• Phone calls from ChatGPT. Section 4.1 says "By using Business Hub, you agree OpenAI's AI assistant may make calls to you on behalf of our users", for example to ask about opening hours or make a reservation. OpenAI has a form to stop these calls to a business number.
• A permanent licence to your basic details. Section 4.2 makes OpenAI's licence "perpetual and irrevocable" for the name, address, contact details, category, opening hours and website you submit for public display.
• No exclusive control, and no delete button. OpenAI "may create, maintain, and display a business listing" whether or not you claim it, and the help article says Support cannot delete, unpublish or hide a published profile. Only an unpublished draft can be deleted.
• A promise not to sue. In section 10 you agree, "irrevocably and perpetually", not to bring claims against OpenAI over the data you submit or the content published on your own websites, and you release such claims. If you care how your website content is used, read this clause twice.

Can a local business get a Business Agent?

Not yet. Agents are open to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US with a website, and OpenAI reviews both the category and the agent's intended use before it goes live. An agent answers questions about your products and policies from information you provide, and links to your website. It cannot take a booking, complete a purchase or check an order. Its chat is labelled and kept separate from ChatGPT's own answer.

The Business Agents policy also limits what an agent may say: it must make clear it is an AI representing the business, and it "must not provide users with advice that legally requires a professional license". That rules out much of what a clinic or a law firm would want one to do. A business can sponsor its agent as the destination of a ChatGPT ad, but that is still an ad below the answer, not a place in it.

What should local businesses outside the US do now?

Prepare the parts that do not need Business Hub, so you are ready when it reaches you. OpenAI says it plans to expand "to more markets and business categories" over time, without dates.

• Let OAI-SearchBot read your website, and keep your name, address, phone number and hours identical everywhere they appear, since those are the details a future profile will show.
• Get onto the listings ChatGPT reads for your trade: Yelp in the US, and elsewhere the directories and registers that come up for your customers' questions. How AI decides which businesses to recommend explains which.
• Decide whether you want ChatGPT to phone your business. If not, the stop-calls form works without a claim.
• Measure where you stand today, by hand with five questions asked three times or with a free Peekl check, so you have a baseline before any profile exists. Business Hub will tell you how often you were shown; a check also shows who was named instead and which websites the answers used.

How we checked this article

The Peekl team read OpenAI's announcement of 10 November 2026, its help article "Setting up your business on ChatGPT", the Businesses in ChatGPT Terms (updated 9 November), the Businesses in ChatGPT policy and the Business Agents policy (both updated 10 November), the claim page and the stop-calls page on 11 November 2026. The figures on how answers vary come from Peekl's repeat test of 11 October 2026, run through OpenAI's API with web search, and the citation share from our September city scans. We are claiming Peekl's own profile in Business Hub and will add what the steps and insights look like once it is approved. Businesses in ChatGPT is a beta that OpenAI plans to widen, so we will update this page as eligibility changes.