ChatGPT now lets you claim your business: what Business Hub does, and what it doesn't

On 10 November OpenAI gave businesses something they have not had since ChatGPT started recommending them: a way to put a hand up and say “that one is us.” Businesses in ChatGPT, now in beta, lets an owner find their business inside ChatGPT, prove it is theirs, correct some of its details and see how often ChatGPT has shown it to people.¹ The launch post is short and upbeat. The help article behind it is longer, more careful and more useful, because it says who can actually claim today, what a “mention” really counts, and what claiming does not do.² This is what both say, what people found when they tried it on launch day, and what it means for a business that wants to be recommended.

What OpenAI actually launched

OpenAI announced three things in one post, and they are easy to blur together. They have different rules, different eligibility and, in one case, a price tag.

OpenAI framed the launch around reach: ChatGPT, it says, is used by 1.2 billion people a week.¹ That is the company’s own figure and has not been independently checked. But the direction is not in doubt. People already ask ChatGPT for a dentist, a plumber or a place to eat, and until this week the businesses it named had no official way to see that happening, or to correct what it said about them.

The idea is not new. Google has let owners claim and manage their Business Profiles for years, and Apple opened Business Connect in 2023 so owners could claim their place cards across Maps, Siri and Wallet.³ What is new is an AI assistant offering the same bargain: tell us you are real, keep your details right, and we will show you a few numbers.

Who can claim today, and why most UK local businesses will have to wait

The launch post says “any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available” can claim.¹ The help article is more precise. Availability depends on the business’s location and type, and one sentence matters more than the rest for anyone running a high-street business outside America: local stores and restaurants “can currently claim only an existing U.S. listing.” Online businesses that cannot find themselves may see an option to add a new profile.² OpenAI’s sign-up page adds that claiming is “initially available to eligible businesses with a website”, and that eligibility also depends on industry and on its own verification and integrity checks.⁴

How claiming works

For businesses that are eligible, the process has two gates: one proves your connection to the business, the other proves who you are. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable walked through it on launch day and verified with a DNS record.⁷

1. 1

   Find your business in Business Hub

   Sign in to ChatGPT, open Business Hub from the sidebar and search for your business by name. Pick the listing that matches and confirm which ChatGPT account will manage it. If the listing shows Contact support, it is locked and you have to ask OpenAI for access.
2. 2

   Prove your connection to the business

   Choose one of four methods: a code by text or automated call to the business phone, a code to the business email, a TXT record added to your domain’s DNS, or connecting your Shopify store. OpenAI then reviews the claim and emails its decision.
3. 3

   Pass the identity check with Persona

   Before you can publish changes, see insights or build an agent, you complete an identity check through Persona. You may need government ID, business registration details and proof you are authorised to represent the business, and the name, address and any registration or tax number must match your official records.
4. 4

   Get the blue check

   The verified badge appears once the identity check is approved, not when the claim is. Claiming on its own does not add it.
5. 5

   Edit, then wait for review

   OpenAI reviews changes before they go live, and says they can take time to appear in a listing or an answer. A saved change does not mean every answer reflects it straight away.

What you can change, and what you cannot

Once both checks are approved, the help article lists what you can update: your website, business description, product or service category, logo, delivery policy, return policy, a cover photo “and other optional details”. Sellers can also connect a product feed, uploaded as a file, linked from a hosted URL or pulled from Shopify, to share prices and availability.² One developer who built a feed on launch day counted 48 fields in the specification, nine of them required.⁵

For an online shop, that covers most of what matters. For a local business it is a strange list. Opening hours, phone number, address, rating and reviews are not on it. They may turn up under “optional details” in time, but nothing OpenAI has published says you can change them here today. The guide also warns that ChatGPT “may also use other sources when answering questions about your business.”²

Those missing fields are exactly what ChatGPT shows on a local business card. When we looked at the data behind ChatGPT’s local answers earlier this year, the cards matched Google Business Profile listings field for field, down to the tracking tags owners add to their website link. OpenAI still has not said where its business listings come from, and Business Hub does not change that.

What the numbers actually measure

The insights are what most people will open first, and what is easiest to misread. They cover the past 28 days and come in three parts.²

Mentions: two different definitions under one word

A mention is not counted the same way for every business. For an online business, it counts when ChatGPT references the business’s website. The brand name on its own does not count. For a local business, it counts when ChatGPT “shows a result for that location”, even if the customer never opens the listing or visits the website.

Both definitions have consequences. For a brand sold through retailers, the retailer often gets the link, and so the mention. In one launch-day test, ChatGPT recommended a brand of running socks without linking to the brand’s own site, and that recommendation would score zero in the brand’s dashboard.⁵

For a local business, a mention means being shown as a place result. That is the business card and map layer of ChatGPT’s answer, which in our earlier research was a different thing from being recommended in the written answer above it. A business can sit on the map without a word in the text, and a mention counts both the same.

Business Hub tells you that ChatGPT showed you. It does not tell you to whom, for which question, or instead of whom.

Website clicks: recorded, not confirmed

The help text on the clicks figure is blunt: it is the “number of recorded clicks on links to your website in ChatGPT. Clicks don’t confirm website visits or conversions.”⁷ The first real dashboards shared publicly also suggest the ratio is lower than OpenAI’s example implied.

Two early dashboards are anecdotes, not a benchmark, and PPC Land, which did the sums, says as much.⁶ But if the pattern holds, being shown will be far more common than being visited. If you want to check OpenAI’s click count against your own figures, our guide to finding ChatGPT traffic in Google Analytics shows where those visits land, including the many that arrive with no referrer and are filed as Direct.

One more detail from those dashboards: both were labelled “Data through Nov 9 (UTC)”, the day before launch.⁶ That points to at least a day’s delay, and it suggests the counts cover activity from before anyone claimed anything. If so, ChatGPT is already counting your business before you claim it.

Discovery topics: themes, not questions

Discovery topics group common themes in the ChatGPT answers that mentioned or cited your business. They are categories, such as “Gift for kids” in OpenAI’s own example dashboard,⁶ not the questions people typed, and OpenAI says they do not “directly measure customer intent.”² There is a small wrinkle in the definition too. The launch post describes them as themes across conversations where your website is cited, while the help article describes answers that mentioned or cited your business. Those are not the same event, and OpenAI has not said which one drives the topics.⁶

Blanks, thresholds and privacy

OpenAI does not share conversations or prompts with businesses, and insights only appear once there are enough conversations to meet thresholds it has not published. A blank figure can mean activity has not reached the threshold, data is still being collected, or reporting is unavailable. It does not necessarily mean zero.² Our reading is that the businesses most likely to see blanks are single-location firms with modest volumes, which are also the ones with the least other data to go on.

Early reaction split along a predictable line. Kevin Indig, who writes the Growth Memo newsletter, called Business Hub “a sort of Search Console for ChatGPT.” Sandilya Miduthuri read the same features more narrowly: “They’re giving topics and click counts, not the actual prompts, so this is closer to a brand listing dashboard than search console.”⁶ Both are right. It is the first count of unpaid ChatGPT appearances that comes from OpenAI itself, and it is also a count with most of the context taken out.

Business Agents and ads: where the money is

The third part of the launch is the commercial one. An eligible business can build a Business Agent that answers questions using its product details and policies. When a business appears in an answer, people can open its profile and choose to start a separate, clearly labelled conversation with its agent.¹ The agent cannot take payments, make bookings or check an order. It explains, then links to your website.²

The rules are strict, and worth reading if you sell anything regulated. An agent has to say it is AI representing the business. It cannot invent prices, reviews or guarantees, create false urgency, ask for sensitive personal data, or give advice that legally needs a professional licence. OpenAI also looks at the business category before allowing an agent to go live, and says passing business verification does not guarantee eligibility.⁸

Then comes the money. Businesses can “sponsor their Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads”, with sponsored placements labelled and kept apart from ChatGPT’s own answers.¹ ChatGPT Ads now run in 89 countries, shown only to people on the Free and Go plans.⁹ OpenAI is careful to say that advertising does not influence ChatGPT’s independent answers.²

Put together, the shape is familiar. There is a listing you claim and keep accurate, an answer the platform writes independently, and a paid lane beside it. Google built local search on that model, and OpenAI is now building it into ChatGPT. Google and Meta have both launched their own “Business Agent” products this year, so ChatGPT is joining a trend rather than starting one.⁶

Why this matters, even before you can claim

It would be easy to treat this as a US story for online shops. We think that misses what has changed.

1. ChatGPT now has an official idea of “your business”. There is a profile, an owner and a badge. That profile exists whether or not you claim it, and ChatGPT may show information about your business either way.⁴ Someone will eventually be responsible for it. It should be you, not a former employee, an old agency or a stranger.
2. Measurement from inside the platform has arrived. Until now, every figure on how often ChatGPT names a business came from outside, by asking it questions and recording the answers. OpenAI’s own count is a real step. Because it hides the questions and the competition, it is also a reason to keep measuring from outside.
3. Claiming is not a ranking factor. OpenAI’s wording is plain: claiming lets you manage the information you provide, but “doesn’t guarantee increased visibility or give you direct control over ChatGPT’s independent recommendations.”² Whether ChatGPT recommends you still depends on what it can read about you elsewhere: your listings, your reviews, your own pages and what other sites say.
4. The ground rules are being set now. Verification, agency access, multi-location claims and disputes are all being decided in this beta. Businesses whose details already match everywhere, and who can prove ownership quickly, will have the easiest time when claiming opens to them.

What to do now

Which of these apply depends on where you are and what you sell.

1. 1

   Check whether you can claim

   Applies toEveryone

   Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar and search for your business. If you are a US shop or restaurant and your listing is there, claim it before someone else does. If you sell online, see whether you are offered the option to add your business. If neither applies, note the date and check again next month.
2. 2

   Get verification ready before you need it

   Applies toEveryone

   Make sure you control at least one of the four routes: a business phone that can receive texts or calls, an email address on your own domain, access to your domain’s DNS, or a Shopify store. Then check that your business name, address and any registration or tax number match your official records, which is OpenAI’s own advice when an identity check fails. For a UK limited company, the obvious record to match is the one held at Companies House.
3. 3

   Have the owner claim, then invite the agency

   Applies toAgencies

   The admin who claims a business can add teammates and give an agency access to manage the profile or its agent, each person using their own ChatGPT account. Do not forward a personal claim invitation to someone else. It is the same principle as Business Profile ownership: the business holds the keys, and the agency is given access.
4. 4

   Plan multi-location claims separately

   Applies toMulti-location brands

   There is no central management across a parent company’s brands and locations yet, and claiming the main brand does not claim its locations. Brands on OpenAI’s managed claim route have location profiles locked by default, so ask your OpenAI contact which route applies to you.²
5. 5

   Keep your listings as the master record

   Applies toLocal businesses

   Hours, phone and address are not editable in Business Hub, so keep them right where they come from: your Business Profile first, then the other major listings. Our NAP consistency guide covers how to audit them.
6. 6

   Let ChatGPT read your website

   Applies toEveryone

   An online business only gets a mention when ChatGPT references its website, and ChatGPT can only quote pages its search crawler can reach. Check that your site, your host and your firewall allow OAI-SearchBot.¹⁰ Blocking GPTBot, the training crawler, is a separate decision.
7. 7

   Write down the numbers every month

   Applies toOnce you have claimed

   Insights cover a rolling 28 days. If you want a trend, record mentions, clicks and the top topics on the same day each month, and put the clicks next to the ChatGPT visits in your analytics.

Quick answers

Can UK businesses claim their business in ChatGPT?

Not local listings, yet. OpenAI's setup guide says local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing US listing. Online businesses outside the US had mixed results at launch: one in Italy was offered the option to add a profile, while a claim from Brazil went to a waiting list.

Does it cost anything to claim a business in ChatGPT?

OpenAI's pages do not mention a fee for claiming a business, editing it or publishing a Business Agent. Sponsoring an agent is advertising, and that is paid.

Will claiming my business make ChatGPT recommend it more?

No. OpenAI says claiming does not guarantee more visibility or give you control over ChatGPT's independent recommendations, and that advertising does not influence them either.

What counts as a mention in Business Hub?

For an online business, ChatGPT referencing your website. Your brand name alone does not count. For a local business, ChatGPT showing a result for your location, even if nobody opens it.

Do I need a Business Agent?

No. Claiming, publishing an agent and advertising are separate. You can manage your information and see insights without an agent, and ChatGPT may show your business whether or not you have one.

Is Business Hub the same as ChatGPT Business?

No. ChatGPT Business is OpenAI's paid workplace subscription for teams. Business Hub is where you claim your business listing. The names are close, and the claim flow has been seen promoting the subscription, but nothing in OpenAI's setup guide requires a paid plan to claim.

Someone else has claimed my business. What can I do?

Open the profile, choose Dispute ownership from the menu and verify through Persona that you are authorised to represent the business.

What we still do not know

This is a beta, and a lot of it is unexplained. As of 11 November 2026:

• When local claims open outside the US. OpenAI plans to expand to more markets and categories and has given no dates.¹
• Where the existing local listings come from. Claiming lets you add to a listing, but OpenAI has not said who supplies the listing in the first place, or whether what you enter in Business Hub takes priority over its other sources.
• How mentions are counted. Whether a business named twice in one answer counts once or twice, and how high the reporting thresholds are, has not been published.⁶
• What some panels mean. Schwartz’s dashboard showed a “Website access” check and some dashboards show profile views while others do not. OpenAI has not explained either.⁶
• Whether claimed profiles are treated differently. OpenAI says claiming does not change visibility. Whether a verified profile is trusted more when ChatGPT writes about a business is something only time and careful tracking will show.

Where SearchOps fits

Business Hub is OpenAI’s view from inside: real conversations, counted, with the questions and the competition removed. That is useful, and if you can claim, you should. What it leaves out is the part you need to decide what to do next, and that is the part SearchOps is built to show.

• Which questions, and who instead. ChatGPT Visibility puts the questions your customers ask, with your town written in, to ChatGPT and Gemini on a schedule. For every response you see whether you were shortlisted, mentioned in the text, cited without your name or not named, which businesses were named instead, the searches ChatGPT ran, and the sites it relied on.
• Whether the clicks became visits. With Google Analytics connected, the AI referrals panel shows each location’s visits from ChatGPT and other assistants over the same 28 days Business Hub uses, so you can set OpenAI’s click count beside what reached your site.
• The records ChatGPT’s cards line up with. SearchOps manages your Business Profiles, where the hours, phone and address Business Hub does not let you edit are kept, and Citations & Links checks each branch’s name, address and phone against its listings across the directories that matter for its country and sector.
• Every location, every month. Business Hub has no central view across locations yet. SearchOps tracks each branch separately and keeps the history, so a trend is not limited to a 28-day window.

Used together, the two answer different questions. Business Hub tells you how much ChatGPT showed you. SearchOps tells you where, for what and against whom, and what to fix. Neither can make ChatGPT recommend a business. Both can tell you whether the work you do on your listings, reviews and pages is changing what it says.