OpenAI has launched a beta program called Businesses in ChatGPT, a move that turns the chatbot's 1.2 billion weekly users into a storefront for companies willing to manage their presence inside the assistant itself. The announcement, published on OpenAI's blog on Tuesday, was reported by The Decoder, Search Engine Roundtable and other outlets, and it positions ChatGPT as a direct challenger to Google's long-dominant business profiles.

The feature arrives as OpenAI works to convert its enormous audience into revenue streams beyond subscriptions, and it follows a string of commerce-oriented experiments inside ChatGPT over the past year. Here is what the new program includes, who can use it, and why it matters for the emerging economics of AI search. For more context on this story, see our ongoing breaking AI news.

What Businesses in ChatGPT Actually Does

At the core of the launch is a new Business Hub, a dashboard where companies can register and manage how they appear inside ChatGPT. Through the hub, businesses can update their information, add product feeds that include prices and availability, and monitor basic performance metrics. OpenAI says companies will be able to track how often they are mentioned in user conversations and how many clicks their websites receive from ChatGPT.

That measurement layer is significant. For months, a cottage industry of so-called generative engine optimization startups has promised to help brands understand and improve how often AI assistants recommend them. By building mention and click analytics directly into its own product, OpenAI is effectively absorbing a market that outside tools were beginning to serve.

The second piece is aimed at eligible US e-commerce and online service providers: Business Agents. These are AI agents that businesses can deploy to answer customer questions directly inside ChatGPT, help users compare products, and serve as targets when ChatGPT's own agent hands off a shopping or service task. According to The Decoder's report on the launch, the agents are designed to handle customer questions in the chat interface rather than simply linking out to a company's website.

A Challenge to Google Business Profiles

The comparison to Google's business listing ecosystem is hard to avoid. Google Business Profiles, formerly known as Google My Business, let companies control how they appear across Search and Maps, and they anchor local commerce on the web. OpenAI's version places business profiles inside a conversational interface instead of a map or results page, which changes both the presentation and the incentives.

In a chat-first model, a business is not competing for a position in a list of ten blue links. It is competing to be the answer the assistant provides, and now, with Business Agents, to be the software that continues the conversation after the user asks a follow-up question.

Whether Businesses in ChatGPT will extend to local businesses the way Google's product does remains an open question. The initial beta focuses on US e-commerce and online service providers, which suggests OpenAI is starting with merchants whose catalog data is already digitized before it tackles the messier world of local listings.

Privacy Guardrails and the Limits of the Beta

OpenAI addressed one of the more obvious concerns in its announcement: user conversations are not shared with businesses. Companies can see aggregate signals such as mention counts and click-throughs, but not the underlying chats that produced them. That distinction will matter to users who have grown wary of how their conversations with AI assistants might be monetized.

The company also said it plans to expand the program to more markets and industries over time, though it did not provide a timeline. During the beta, access for Business Agents is limited to eligible US e-commerce and online service businesses, and OpenAI has not said when the feature will open more broadly or whether businesses will eventually pay for placement or enhanced profiles.

Why It Matters for AI Commerce

ChatGPT's scale is the story here. OpenAI says 1.2 billion people use the chatbot each week, a figure the company has also cited in other recent announcements. Even a modest conversion of that audience into product research and purchases would represent a meaningful shift in how consumers discover products, and it explains why companies ranging from Booking.com to Etsy have rushed to integrate with OpenAI's commerce initiatives over the past year.

For merchants, the calculus is becoming familiar from the early days of social media platforms: participate early, learn the analytics, and hope the rules do not change once dependency sets in. The mention and click data included in the Business Hub gives businesses their first native feedback loop for AI-driven discovery, replacing guesswork with numbers.

For Google, the launch is another reminder that its search franchise faces pressure not just from rival search engines but from assistants that never show a results page at all. Google has its own AI shopping features and has begun weaving its Gemini models into Search, but OpenAI is now building the merchant-side infrastructure that made Google's ecosystem so durable.

And for the generative engine optimization startups that formed over the past two years, the beta is a warning. When the platform itself starts telling businesses how often they were mentioned and how many clicks they earned, the middlemen lose their information advantage.

What to Watch Next

Three things will determine whether Businesses in ChatGPT becomes a major commerce channel or a niche experiment. First, how quickly the beta expands beyond US e-commerce and online services to local businesses, international markets, and other verticals. Second, whether OpenAI introduces paid placement or premium profile tiers, which would clarify the business model but could erode trust in recommendations. Third, whether users actually engage with Business Agents or treat them as intrusive.

For now, the launch marks OpenAI's most explicit move yet from being a place where people ask questions to being a place where transactions begin. Businesses that sell online should expect their customers to increasingly meet them inside a chat window, and the companies that learn to operate there first will have the clearest picture of what AI-driven commerce is worth.

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