Social Rocket
OpenAI launches company profiles and Business Agents in ChatGPT on 10 November 2026. Brands can manage their details for the first time via a dedicated Business Hub. With participating US retailers and online service providers, a brand-specific AI advisor also opens from a ChatGPT answer. This links a previously independent product recommendation with a concrete conversation about the company's offer.
For shops and marketing teams, this step is more interesting than yet another chatbot on their own website: advice begins where customers are already comparing products. At launch, OpenAI cites 1,2 billion weekly ChatGPT users. That figure describes ChatGPT's overall usage, not the reach of the new Business Agents.
Business Hub: verification, product feeds, prices
Companies can register via the officially announced Business Hub and claim their business listing. After verification, core details and product feeds with prices and availability can be maintained. Shopify merchants can establish the connection from the Hub or from their Shopify admin; existing Shopify catalogues are already part of the commerce integration.
The Business Hub is, in principle, planned as a beta for eligible companies in countries where ChatGPT is available. The actual Business Agents, however, initially launch only for eligible e-commerce and online service providers in the USA. No date for Agents in Germany has been announced.
The brand dashboard with mentions and clicks, previously described by Srocket, is now official too: companies see aggregated mentions, website clicks and the topics through which users discover their website. Individual customer conversations are not disclosed to them.
The decisive difference: the AI speaks for the company
If a participating provider appears in a ChatGPT answer, its profile can be opened. There, a user can voluntarily talk to the Business Agent: for example, compare different product versions, ask follow-up questions about services, or find out which variant fits the budget.
The agent is labelled as a company conversation and kept separate from the neutral ChatGPT dialogue. The brand supplies instructions and current offer data; OpenAI operates the agent itself. According to a Digiday interview with OpenAI's monetisation chief, providers currently cannot deploy their own external agent in this format. A transaction is completed through the route the respective retailer provides – for example, in its own shop.
Two distribution routes sit behind this. The Business Agent can be opened organically; alternatively, it can be used as a sponsored destination for a ChatGPT ad. Advertising remains labelled. OpenAI thereby complements the existing Sponsored Agents and ChatGPT ads formats, rather than mixing product advice with paid placement.
What German retailers can prepare now
For a German shop, the first priority is working on product data: clear brand and company details, traceable availability, understandable variant differences and consistent prices. This is exactly the information needed when AI systems turn general questions into concrete purchase decisions. A second lever is evaluating the new Hub figures against real shop sessions and orders.
This development fits the broader competition for AI-driven shopping between ChatGPT, Google and Amazon. While search engines show products in results pages, assistants are now trying to take over the advisory process itself.
The practical benchmark for marketing teams is therefore not the length of an agent conversation, but whether suitable advice leads to qualified demand and measurable sales. For Business Agents, this test begins in the USA; the verifiable company presence is already the first step in further markets.
Sources: OpenAI product announcement from 10 November, Digiday, Reuters. Cover image: Shoper / Unsplash (illustrative image).