Businesses in ChatGPT: what launched and what to do outside the US

What launched, on one screen

OpenAI says 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week. Until 10 November a business had no official way to correct what the product said about it. Now there are three pieces, all in beta.

Claiming, running an agent and advertising are three separate things. The help center says outright that you can claim a business and use insights without publishing an agent or buying an ad.

The agent cannot take a payment, make a booking or look up an order. It explains your products and policies and links to your website, where the customer finishes. If you were hoping for a checkout inside ChatGPT, this is not it.

And OpenAI is blunt about the headline question: claiming does not guarantee higher placement or sales.

What is live, what is beta, what is US only, what is unknown

Our readingEverything is beta. The more useful split is which piece works for your country, business type and platform. The checker below answers only from what OpenAI and Shopify have published and says unknown where nothing is published. It will go stale, so the last checked date at the end of this page matters.

Our readingThailand and Belgium are both on the list of countries where ChatGPT access is supported, and both are listed as self-service available for ChatGPT Ads. That settles where you can use the product and buy ads. It does not settle whether OpenAI's verification works for a Thai or Belgian company: the help center says claiming is open where 'the required verification is supported', and OpenAI did not say how many countries support each method.

Our readingAt the time of writing we have not claimed a profile for a Thai company, and we found no report of anyone who has. When someone does, we will update this page and say so at the top.

Our readingFour things the checker cannot tell you: whether OpenAI will approve your particular claim, which industries are on hold, how long review takes (OpenAI gives no time) and whether Thai or Dutch descriptions are accepted. No page we read answers the last one.

How claiming works, step by step

This follows OpenAI's setup guide. You do not need an Ads account or a ChatGPT Enterprise agreement, only to own the business or be authorized to represent it. Where a blogger or outlet added a detail from their own run, we say so.

1. Sign in to ChatGPT on the web and open Business Hub from the sidebar. Use the account that should own the business: the person who claims becomes the admin who can add others.
2. Search for your business by name and select the matching listing. If it is not there and you run an eligible online business, you may be offered an option to add it. A listing that says Contact support is locked.
3. Pick a verification method from those shown. Phone sends a code by SMS or automated call to the number in the listing. Email sends a code to the business address. Website domain gives you a DNS TXT record to copy exactly (type, name, value) and can take a while to show up. Shopify asks you to log in to the store.
4. Wait for OpenAI to review. It emails a decision or a request for more information, and you can cancel while it is pending. No review time is published.
5. After approval the business sits in your Hub, and that is all. To publish changes, connect a feed, view insights or create an agent you must complete identity verification with Persona. Expect to need a government ID, business registration information and proof you may represent the company, and the name, address and registration or tax number must match official records.
6. Wait for the Persona decision. Submitting documents is not approval. The help center says the blue check appears after Persona approval; the product page says it shows a profile is claimed. We follow the help center and list the conflict further down.
7. Update the profile: website, description, category, logo, delivery policy, return policy and a cover photo. OpenAI reviews and publishes each change, so a saved edit is not a live edit.
8. Optional extras: connect a product feed, or build, preview and publish an agent. Neither is required, and neither is automatic.

Two traps are worth knowing before you start. If you create a new profile through Persona, OpenAI's approval publishes it with no separate publish step, and Support cannot unpublish or delete a published profile. Finish the description, category and policies first.

Single sourceThe second trap is someone claiming your business before you do. Search Engine Roundtable's editor raised that worry while verifying his own site. The help center offers a dispute route through the profile's more options menu, verified with Persona, and says claiming or disputing does not change visibility in ChatGPT.

Agencies and teammates can be added by the admin, each with their own ChatGPT account, and an agency can be given access to manage the profile or agent. Brands are separate: there is no central view for a parent company, and claiming the main brand does not claim its locations. Claim invitations are personal and should not be forwarded.

Our readingOur advice on preparation: before you open Business Hub, find out who controls your domain's DNS, who receives mail at the business address, and who holds the company registration papers. For a Thai company that is probably the DBD certificate, but OpenAI does not say which documents it accepts in each country. Whoever holds the domain login is the usual bottleneck for any DNS check, so ask early.

What a Business Agent is and who gets one

When ChatGPT names your business in an answer, the customer can click through to your profile. If you have published an agent, they can choose to start a conversation with it, for example to ask how two products differ. That chat is labeled, kept separate from their original ChatGPT conversation and distinct from ChatGPT's own answers.

Our readingEligibility is narrower than claiming. Agents are for eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the US with a website, and the Business Agents Policy adds industry requirements: OpenAI looks at the category and the intended use, and says verification alone does not guarantee an agent. The announcement points to a page on eligible categories, but we could not find its text among the pages we read, so we do not list categories.

Single sourceWhat you control is the information and the instructions. What you do not control is the agent itself: according to one Digiday interview, OpenAI is not letting businesses bring their own agents, and it keeps the transcripts, so you only see themes. VentureBeat adds that the setup guide describes one agent per claimed profile and OpenAI has not said whether that is a hard limit.

The rules you sign up to are practical. The agent must say it is AI and may not pose as a human, an independent adviser or an OpenAI endorsed service. It may not invent prices or stock, create false urgency, keep pushing after a customer declines, ask for health details or credentials, or give advice that legally needs a licence. OpenAI reviews it when you create it and every time you update it, and can suspend it.

Shopify is not required for an agent, but it is the quicker route. Connect the store from Business Hub or the Shopify admin, a draft agent may already exist, and you preview and publish it. Shopify says agents are limited to eligible stores based in the US, so a store in Bangkok that sells to US customers can have its products in ChatGPT but not an agent.

How we got here: the dated timeline

Single sourceThe agent did not appear from nowhere. OpenAI started with ads in February, opened self-serve ad buying in spring, tested sponsored agents in September and reached Thailand with ads on 23 September. Business Hub is the organic side of the same agent, and Shomair said so in as many words.

How this connects to ads, shopping feeds and the way ChatGPT already names businesses

ChatGPT was naming businesses before any of this existed. For shopping questions OpenAI says a product appears when ChatGPT judges it relevant to what the user asked, using structured data from first and third party providers, and that not every matching product is shown. Merchants for a product are ranked on availability, price, quality and whether they are the maker or the primary seller.

Single sourceOur readingSo a profile and a feed are inputs, not a switch. Shomair told Digiday that claiming 'should not have an impact on how frequently it appears', and also that a clearer picture of what you offer could help ChatGPT surface you in more relevant conversations. We read that as: you cannot buy rank, you can stop being described wrongly.

Single sourceOne logged out test from Italy shows why the mention rules matter. ChatGPT named five wool sock brands but linked mostly to retailers, and two of the brands got no link to their own website. Under OpenAI's rule that an online business is mentioned when ChatGPT references its website, those two brands would not have counted. If you sell mostly through marketplaces or resellers, expect Insights to show less than your real presence.

Ads are a separate road. ChatGPT Ads are live in Thailand since 23 September, Belgium and Thailand are both listed as self-service available, and the advertising entity must sit in a listed country. Pointing an ad at an agent is a different matter: Sponsored Agents are a limited alpha for selected advertisers and OpenAI is not taking early access requests. A Thai business can buy ads today; it cannot yet choose an agent as the landing page.

If you are weighing ads, we published the Thai rules and a budget worked example: the THB 205 minimum daily budget is a spending rule, not the price of a click.

• ChatGPT ads in Thailand: costs, access and when to test

What it means for your type of business

Our readingThis is our reading of the published rules for five common cases. It is not a promise of what OpenAI will approve.

What to do this week, even if you cannot claim yet

Our readingFourteen items in five groups. None of them needs an OpenAI account. Tick them as you go; the list stays in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.

Single sourceMeasuring is the hard part. In our October Bangkok test DLVX appeared in 2 of 10 valid Google AI Mode answers, and ChatGPT produced no valid captures that run, so we left it out instead of counting it as zero. Business Hub will give first party counts, but only to businesses that can claim. Until then a sampled check is the best available.

Our readingIf you want to know whether ChatGPT and Google AI Mode name your business today, the free AI visibility check asks them for you.

• Bangkok AI visibility benchmark, October 2026

Risks and open questions

• Single sourcePlacement. OpenAI says claiming guarantees nothing, and Shomair said it should not change how often you appear. Budget for effort, not for rank.
• Price. No OpenAI page we read states one. Digiday reports it is free for now and a paid model is not ruled out. If you build a workflow on it, plan for a bill later.
• Single sourceData. OpenAI keeps agent transcripts and gives you themes. Counts appear only above thresholds and can be incomplete, and a blank is not zero. Share of voice is not in the beta, so you cannot see competitors.
• Liability. You are responsible for what the agent says and for the profile facts, and OpenAI does not verify every detail. A wrong price in the agent is your wrong price.
• No undo. A profile created through Persona publishes on approval and cannot be unpublished by Support.
• Counting. A brand name alone is not a mention, and a click is not a visit. Do not report these counts to a board as traffic.
• Rules can move. OpenAI may hold categories back and says eligibility may change. It plans to expand to more markets and categories and declined to give a date.
• Our readingLanguage. Nothing we read says whether Thai or Dutch profile text and agents are supported.

Where the sources disagree

Launch day coverage copied each other and sometimes OpenAI's own pages. Here is where the record conflicts and what we did about it.

Questions owners ask

How we wrote this

We opened every source listed below on 11 November 2026, 18 of them from OpenAI and Shopify. Five more could not be opened and are not counted. Every statement on the page is traced to a fact register held in our work files. Statements that rest on one outlet or on our own reading carry a tag.

We sell website and AI visibility work, so weigh our advice with that in mind. Nothing here is paid for by OpenAI, Shopify or any outlet we cite.

Last checked 11 November 2026. This is a beta and OpenAI says eligibility may change, so we will update this page when it does.

Sources and dates

Every source below was opened and read on 11 November 2026. The id in each chip above points to its row here.

Our own published data

• I1Bangkok AI visibility benchmark: October 2026 (8 Oct 2026)
• I2ChatGPT ads in Thailand (23 Oct 2026)

Could not be opened, so not counted

• https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2120216592395174382 (HTTP 402 from the fetcher, post text not readable)
• https://itbrief.co.nz/story/openai-launches-chatgpt-business-hub-for-companies (blocked by the publisher (access denied page))
• https://www.webpronews.com/openai-launches-business-hub-and-business-agents-in-chatgpt/ (page not found)
• https://shiftdelete.net/openai-chatgpt-business-hub (bot challenge, no article text)
• https://searchengineland.com/openai-testing-business-tools-to-track-performance-within-chatgpt-500841 (Cloudflare challenge, no article text)

Who wrote this, how and why

Who: Written by the DLVX team under founder Wil Delvaux. DLVX sells the kind of work discussed here, so we have an interest in the topic.

How: Figures come from our published price list and the sources linked on the page, with the checked date shown. Research and drafting use AI assistance, and a person at DLVX checks the facts before publishing.

Why: Buyers ask these questions before a project starts. We wrote the answer down so it can be checked and cited.