OpenAI has introduced Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, giving eligible companies a public profile inside the chatbot in a move that could turn the AI assistant into a new shopfront for brands.
What the launch does
The new feature gives eligible companies a business profile within ChatGPT, allowing them to present themselves to users of the chatbot. The launch comes with limits on agents, the automated tools that can act on a user’s behalf, according to the announcement.
The move is the latest step in OpenAI’s push to turn ChatGPT from a question-answering tool into a platform where businesses can reach customers directly. It follows the company’s broader expansion into shopping, search and workplace tools. For small businesses, the open question is whether a ChatGPT profile becomes a new way customers find them, or simply another listing to maintain. OpenAI has not said which businesses are eligible, how profiles are verified, or when the beta will open more widely — all questions the company will need to answer before the feature can be judged.
The beta launch was reported on Wednesday with no launch date beyond the beta itself, and OpenAI has not said whether business profiles will be free, paid, or tied to its existing subscription plans. The limits on agents were noted in the announcement but not spelled out in the material available at drafting time, so the practical question for businesses — what the profile can actually do for them — remains unanswered until OpenAI publishes more detail.
The wider AI race
The launch comes on a busy week for the AI industry. Anthropic set a $70 to $78 price range on Tuesday for its stock market listing, which could value the Claude maker at up to $1.4 trillion, while Microsoft credited a researcher using Anthropic’s Claude with discovering an Outlook flaw that attackers are already exploiting.
The competition between the leading AI labs is now playing out across consumer products, enterprise tools and the stock market at the same time, with each company racing to turn its chatbot into the place where people shop, work and find information.
