OpenAI Adds Business Profiles to ChatGPT in Push Toward Search-Style Discovery

OpenAI is rolling out new tools meant to help companies shape how they appear inside ChatGPT, as the chatbot increasingly becomes a place where people look up products and compare options.

At the center of the rollout is a Business Hub, now in beta, where eligible companies can create profiles and verify and update details about their products and services. The setup closely resembles the business listings long offered by Google and other search engines.

Companies will also be able to build a specialized business agent that ChatGPT users can question about the business and its offerings. The hub adds limited insights showing how people interact with a business - profile views, mentions, website clicks and other metrics.

Verification is required, though OpenAI did not detail what the process involves. Benji Shomair, VP of Monetization, told journalists that the company uses "multiple verification methods" for different business types and markets.

The move follows an earlier attempt to turn ChatGPT into a shopping destination with direct purchases and a commission system, an effort the company retired in March after it failed to gain traction. Whether the profile push fares better remains to be seen.