OpenAI wants to be the place people ask where to spend their money. On 10 <a href="https://myappsplus.com/apple-is-shutting-down-its-online-support-community-on-november-20/” title=”Apple is shutting down its online Support Community on November 20″>November it launched Businesses in ChatGPT, and if you sell anything online, this is one of those dull-looking announcements you should act on this week rather than next year.
Here is why. OpenAI says 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every week, and some of them are asking it what to buy, who to hire, which software to pick. Until now, whatever the model said about your business came from the open web – right or wrong. Now you can walk in, claim your name and correct the record yourself.
What you get once you are in
Business Hub is the dashboard. You claim your business there, fix the details ChatGPT shows about it, and get reporting on how often you come up, how many people click through to your site, and what people tend to ask about you. Genuinely useful, especially that last one.
The flashier half is Business Agents. Yours can answer questions about your products, compare them and point shoppers to the right one, all from information you supply. These chats are clearly labelled and kept apart from ChatGPT’s own answers, so nobody can accuse you of buying the referee.
Setting it up takes about five minutes
Go to Business Hub from OpenAI’s announcement page and sign in. Claim the business – you will need to prove it is yours, so have website access handy. Then verify properly: the blue badge only appears once Persona verification is approved, and plenty of people will assume claiming alone is enough.
It is not.
Selling products? Add the product feed with current prices and stock. Your agent quotes from it, so last month’s sale price becomes this month’s angry customer email.
One caveat before you start: claiming a profile, publishing an agent and buying ads are three separate steps. The first commits you to nothing.
The catch for Indian businesses
Business Agents are limited to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US at launch. Claiming a profile is more widely open, and that is the part worth doing from India today. It takes minutes and puts you at the front of the queue when eligibility widens.
Which it will.
The bottom line
Google spent two decades as the front door to every business on earth. OpenAI plainly wants that job, and 1.2 billion weekly users is a serious claim on it. Claim your name now, set the agent up the day it reaches your country, and do not be the business a chatbot introduces badly.
