OpenAI launches Business Hub in ChatGPT with click data

OpenAI has launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, a Business Hub where a company can claim its listing, prove it owns it, correct the details ChatGPT holds and see how often ChatGPT cited its website or sent a click to it over the past 28 days.

The announcement went up on 10 November, days after the hub was spotted showing daily mentions and clicks in a pre-launch preview. Early claimants are already split between those who can see click numbers and those whose panel is still empty.

OpenAI puts ChatGPT's audience at 1.2 billion people a week, and Australian online businesses should be able to use most of the hub. Business Agents are US-only, and local stores and restaurants can claim only existing US listings for now. The click figure also needs a caveat before it goes into a report.

Claimed listings need a Persona ID check

Business Hub opens from the sidebar in ChatGPT on the web. You search for your business by name, pick the listing that matches, confirm which ChatGPT account will manage it and choose a verification method. OpenAI lists four methods, though the ones offered depend on the business: a code sent by SMS or automated call to the business phone, a code sent to the business email, a TXT record added to the domain's DNS, or a Shopify login that connects the store.

OpenAI reviews the claim and emails its decision. Approval on its own does not let you publish changes. To publish changes, connect a product feed, view insights or build an agent, the person who claimed the business has to pass an identity check with Persona, which may ask for government-issued ID, business registration details and proof that they are authorised to act for the business. The blue verified tick on a profile appears only after Persona approval, so a claimed but unverified profile has no badge.

The admin who claimed the business can add teammates and give an agency access, each on their own ChatGPT account; OpenAI says not to forward a personal claim invitation to share access. A new profile created through Persona publishes automatically once OpenAI approves it, with no separate publish step. If someone else has already claimed your business, the profile carries a Dispute ownership option that runs through the same Persona check, and OpenAI says neither claiming nor disputing changes how visible the business is in ChatGPT.

Check whether your business can claim a ChatGPT listing

OpenAI says eligible businesses can claim through Business Hub wherever ChatGPT is available, which includes Australia, provided the required verification is supported, with availability depending on location and business type. An online business that cannot find itself may see an option to add a listing. Local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing US listing, so a Melbourne café or Perth shopfront has nothing to claim for now.

Each brand is managed on its own. Claiming the main brand does not claim its locations, and central management across a parent company's brands is not available yet. No Ads account or ChatGPT Enterprise agreement is needed to claim; existing Enterprise customers and advertisers can go through their OpenAI representative instead.

Insights mentions count website citations and not brand names

Once Persona is approved, the Insights tab shows aggregate activity for the past 28 days: mentions, website clicks and discovery topics. For an online business, a mention is recorded when ChatGPT references the business's website. ChatGPT naming the brand in text without citing the site does not count. For a local business, a mention is recorded when ChatGPT shows a result for that location, whether or not the person opens it.

So the online figure is a citation count, in the sense our guide to what an LLM citation is uses: a brand named in an answer with no link to its site registers nothing in the hub.

Discovery topics group the themes of answers that cited or mentioned the business. OpenAI says they are aggregate categories, not individual prompts, and not a direct measure of customer intent. Businesses see no individual prompts or conversations, including chats with their own agent. A pre-launch preview showed mentions and clicks charted by day with no prompt data and no competitor benchmark, so the hub shows that the numbers moved, and broad themes via discovery topics, but not the prompts behind them.

A blank metric does not mean zero. OpenAI says a blank can mean there is too little activity to report, the data has not finished collecting or reporting is not available yet, and it suggests contacting support if a metric stays blank. That is the split early claimants describe: some have numbers and some have an empty panel.

What the Business Hub clicks metric counts

The clicks metric counts recorded clicks on links to your website inside ChatGPT. The tooltip on the metric, visible in a screenshot an early user shared, says "Clicks don't confirm website visits or conversions." A click ChatGPT records may never land, and a visit that lands may arrive without a referrer, so the hub's number and GA4's ChatGPT referral line are likely to disagree.

Treat the hub's clicks as a ChatGPT-side count and report it as one. Put it next to GA4's ChatGPT referral sessions, expect a gap, and if the hub shows clicks while GA4 shows almost none, check your tagging and channel grouping before blaming either tool.

Only US online businesses can publish a Business Agent

The second half of the launch is Business Agents. When a business appears in an answer, people can click through to its ChatGPT profile and, if an agent is published, open a labelled chat with it, separate from their own conversation, to ask about products and policies. OpenAI's example is a shopper asking which of two products suits their needs.

Only US businesses that sell online or offer services online, have a website and meet OpenAI's Business Agents Policy can publish an agent. They cannot complete purchases, take bookings or check an order; they explain products and policies and link to the website. A business can sponsor its agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT Ads, with sponsored placements labelled and kept apart from responses. OpenAI says advertising does not influence ChatGPT's independent answers and that claiming a business does not guarantee it more visibility or give it control over ChatGPT's recommendations. It plans to expand both Businesses in ChatGPT and Business Agents to more markets and categories over time, with no dates given.

Profile edits go through OpenAI review before publishing

Sellers can connect a product feed to share prices and availability: a Shopify feed, a CSV that follows OpenAI's product feed specification, or a hosted feed URL. Products must follow OpenAI's commerce policies, and a connected feed does not guarantee ChatGPT recommends anything. Eligible products from Shopify merchants are already in ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog.

Profile edits such as the website, description, category, logo and delivery and return policies go through OpenAI review before they publish. Updates can take time to appear in a listing or an answer, and ChatGPT may draw on other sources when answering questions about a business, so a saved change does not rewrite every answer.

Your website remains a key source, and it has to be crawlable. OpenAI's web search help says a site is eligible for ChatGPT search results only if it allows OAI-SearchBot and its host or CDN admits OpenAI's published searchbot IP addresses, and placement is never guaranteed. Block the crawler and the mention and click panels are likely to have little or nothing to count; our guide to how ChatGPT search works sets out which OpenAI crawler does what.

Australian online businesses can add ChatGPT clicks to monthly reports

For an Australian online business the order is:

• Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar on the web and search for your business name. Claim the listing if it exists; if someone else has claimed it, use Dispute ownership.
• Verify by DNS TXT record if whoever manages your domain can add one, otherwise by business email or phone. Have government ID and registration details (such as your ABN) ready for Persona, and make the name and address match your official records.
• Once approved, check the website, category, delivery policy and return policy fields. Those fields feed the profile people can reach from an answer.
• Add the 28-day mentions and clicks to your monthly report as a separate line labelled as ChatGPT-recorded, next to GA4's ChatGPT referral sessions.
• If the panel is blank, record it as not reported (not zero), and check again next month.

A local shop or restaurant in Australia has nothing to claim yet. Keep the website details accurate and OAI-SearchBot allowed, and check the hub again when OpenAI opens local listings beyond the US.