OpenAI opens a free Business Hub and brand agents in ChatGPT

To prove it owns the business, a company adds a record to its web domain’s settings (DNS) or answers a call or text on its main phone number, Search Engine Roundtable notes. An Insights tab tracks website clicks, profile views and mentions; an ad executive with access told Digiday its chart covers the past 7 or 28 days. An OpenAI spokesperson told Digiday that naming a brand is not enough for a mention: ChatGPT has to show the business’s location or cite its site. A click is only a tap on a link, and proves neither a visit nor a sale.

In the US, e-commerce and online service firms can also publish a Business Agent, a separate chat marked as the brand’s and built from the company’s feed and instructions. It answers shoppers’ questions, then hands them to the brand’s website to pay. OpenAI’s vice president of monetisation, Benji Shomair, called it “the organic experience”, the free twin of the sponsored agent OpenAI sells as an ad. The Hub and the free agent cost nothing for now, and Shomair says joining does not change how often a business is recommended.

On our ChatGPT page, checked on 10 November, the Go plan card says that plan may include ads.

The sponsored agent should run on the same build as the free one, Shomair says, so the instructions and feed a brand writes for its free Business Agent are the ones any sponsored placement it buys later would use.