Businesses in ChatGPT: What Launched and How Australian Businesses Should Get Ready
OpenAI's Business Hub lets businesses claim their ChatGPT profile and see mentions and clicks. What Australian businesses can do at launch, how to join the waitlist, and the checklist to work through now.
On 10 November 2026, OpenAI opened a door that local SEOs have been expecting for a while. Businesses in ChatGPT is now in beta, with a dashboard called Business Hub where a business can claim its profile, correct its details and see how often ChatGPT mentions it and sends clicks to its website.
If you’ve managed a Google Business Profile, the shape will feel familiar. The catch for Australian businesses is that it’s rolling out in the US first. Here, local businesses face limits at launch, and Australian businesses that tried to claim their listing were put on a waitlist. Checking your own options is the first thing I’d do.
- Business Hub lets a business claim its ChatGPT profile and, once the claim and a separate identity check are approved, edit key details, add product feeds (US-targeted for now) and see mentions, website clicks and discovery topics.
- At launch, local shops and restaurants can only claim existing US listings. Australian businesses that tried to claim their existing listing at launch were put on a waitlist instead.
- Joining takes a ChatGPT account (a free one works) and a few minutes in Business Hub at chatgpt.com/business-hub.
- Verification runs through your business phone, business email, a DNS record on your domain or a Shopify store, followed by an identity check.
- OpenAI says claiming does not guarantee higher placement. Being crawlable, consistent and clearly described still matters most.
- The prep work (crawler access, consistent details, owned logins, quotable answers, a GA4 baseline) cleans up your information and removes technical blocks now, whenever the claim opens for you.
What Businesses in ChatGPT is
Businesses in ChatGPT is OpenAI’s beta programme that lets a business claim its profile inside ChatGPT, manage the information ChatGPT shows about it, and see aggregated insights on how people engage with it. OpenAI announced it alongside a figure of 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users. It has three parts.
Business Hub: the profile
Business Hub is the dashboard, reached from the ChatGPT sidebar. After the claim and a separate identity check through Persona are approved, a business can update key details and, if it sells products, add a product feed with pricing and availability. The standard product feed upload currently targets the US, so Australian retailers should check eligibility before building one.
Insights: mentions, clicks and discovery topics
Business Hub reports the number of mentions and website clicks a business receives, plus “discovery topics”: common themes across conversations where your website is cited. The figures cover the past 28 days, and OpenAI’s setup guide warns that counts may be incomplete: a blank figure doesn’t necessarily mean zero activity.
Business Agents: the part that talks to customers
A Business Agent is an AI that answers customer questions inside ChatGPT, using information the business supplies, in a chat labelled as the business’s. OpenAI says Business Agents are available to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the United States, with more markets and categories planned.
Can Australian businesses claim their profile yet?
Only in limited cases so far. The feature is rolling out in the US first. OpenAI says any eligible business located where ChatGPT is available can claim through Business Hub, but its setup guidance makes eligibility depend on location, business type and the verification methods supported.
Three launch-day details matter for Australia:
- Local stores and restaurants can only claim an existing US listing for now, as Search Engine Watch reported from OpenAI’s guidance.
- Australian claims have ended on a waitlist in early tests. Mumbrella reported that an Australian marketing team trying to register on launch morning ended up on a waitlist, and Citeme’s launch-day walkthrough of the physical-location option ended the same way, with an email promised when the next step opens. These are observed examples, not a rule: your options may vary with location and business type.
- Adding a new service business isn’t available yet. When you create a listing that doesn’t exist, the option for businesses that visit customers or provide services remotely was marked “coming soon” in Flavio Copes’ launch-day walkthrough. That’s about adding a new listing: if ChatGPT already has a listing for your business, search for it and try the claim.
Online stores are in a different position: OpenAI’s setup guide says eligible businesses can add a listing where ChatGPT is available and the required verification is supported, so an Australian online store is worth trying now.
How to join the Business Hub waitlist
Getting on the waitlist costs nothing and takes a few minutes. You need a ChatGPT account; Citeme went through the flow on a free one.
- Sign in to ChatGPT with an account the owner or an authorised admin controls, ideally on a business email, rather than a staff member’s personal login. Whoever claims becomes the admin, and one shared login between staff is a security problem waiting to happen.
- Open Business Hub from the ChatGPT sidebar, or go to chatgpt.com/business-hub.
- Search for your business by name and select it.
- Choose how customers deal with you, picking the option that genuinely describes your business. If customers come to your premises, the physical location option registers you and, in launch-day tests, puts you on the waitlist, with an email promised when the next step opens. If you go to the customer, that option is marked “coming soon” for now, so check back.
I don’t read the waitlist as bad news. It’s a window. Having your accounts, verification documents and business details ready should cut avoidable delays once your category opens, though OpenAI still has to review and approve each claim. The alternative is chasing a domain password from a developer who stopped replying years ago.
What the Business Hub numbers will and won’t tell you
Read these numbers carefully before you build decisions on them.
A mention isn’t always your brand name. For an online business, a mention only counts when ChatGPT references the business’s website. For a local business, showing a result for the location counts. Flavio Copes found ChatGPT naming brands while linking to a retailer’s website instead of theirs, which wouldn’t register as a mention for those brands.
A click isn’t a visit. The tooltip on the clicks figure, captured by Search Engine Roundtable, says clicks “don’t confirm website visits or conversions”. Your own analytics still decides what a click was worth.
You see themes, not questions. OpenAI says it doesn’t share users’ conversations or Business Agent chats with businesses, and insights only appear above certain volume thresholds. A blank figure can mean you’re under the threshold rather than invisible.
Nothing in the launch material compares you with competitors. You’ll see your own mentions. You won’t see why the business down the road gets named ahead of you. Working that out is still an SEO job.
How to get your business ready for ChatGPT
Here’s the checklist I’m running for clients. Each step is useful now, whatever OpenAI does next.
1. Let OpenAI’s search crawler in
OpenAI’s crawler documentation is blunt: sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, beyond a bare navigational link. Allow it in robots.txt, and allow OpenAI’s published IP ranges.
The robots.txt line is the easy half:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /The half people miss is the firewall. Your robots.txt can say yes while your CDN, hosting security or WordPress security plugin says no. Bot protection rarely tells anyone what it blocked. Check your security logs, not just the text file, and allow about 24 hours after any robots.txt change, which is how long OpenAI says its systems can take to adjust.
How I checked my own site. On 11 November 2026 I checked searchscope.com.au: the live robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot by name, and the homepage returns a normal response to a request carrying OAI-SearchBot’s user agent. That second test only proves the user agent isn’t blocked. A firewall that filters by IP address can still stop the real crawler, which is why the security logs are the check that counts.
GPTBot is a different crawler. It collects content for training OpenAI’s models, and blocking it doesn’t remove you from ChatGPT search. Allow it or block it, but decide on purpose.
2. Make your details identical everywhere, not just on Google
ChatGPT doesn’t take your business details from one master source. OpenAI documents that ChatGPT search “sometimes partners with other search providers” without saying how much each one shapes an answer, and it now licenses Yelp data for reviews and business information. In practice it can draw on your website and on what the wider web says about you.
So the job is consistency across every place you’re listed:
- Your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Facebook page and the directories that rank for your business name.
- Same business name, phone, hours and website on each one, the same address where you publish one, and the closest matching category on each platform (category lists differ).
- Common abbreviations like “St” for “Street” aren’t necessarily a problem, but contradictory details (an old phone number, a previous address) can make verification harder and give AI tools conflicting facts.
- Put your phone number and address on your site as plain text. A number inside a banner image isn’t a number to a crawler.
3. Secure your verification methods and important accounts
Verification is where unprepared businesses can stall. Business Hub currently offers four routes: a code to your business phone, a code to a business email, a DNS TXT record on your domain, or a Shopify connection. An approved claim then needs an identity check through Persona before you can publish changes or view insights, and OpenAI says it may ask for government-issued ID, business registration information and proof you’re authorised to represent the business.
For Business Hub itself, make sure before your category opens that:
- The domain is under your business’s control and someone authorised can log into the registrar and DNS.
- Your business email runs on your own domain.
- The phone number on your listings is one you actually answer.
Separately, as good housekeeping rather than a Business Hub requirement, make sure your business holds owner access to Google Analytics, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing Places, your Facebook page and your Google Business Profile. Owner, not “they added me as a user”. Write every login and owner down somewhere safe.
If a former agency or developer controls any of these, fix it now, while nothing is urgent.
4. Write the answers a ChatGPT agent would need
When Business Agents reach Australia, they’ll answer from the information you give them. Until then, make your site easy for AI search systems to retrieve and understand: clear, self-contained answers give them something useful to summarise or cite, without guaranteeing inclusion.
Write on your own site, in short passages, one question per answer:
- Each service: what it is, where you do it, who it’s for, and what you don’t do.
- Service areas, opening hours and holiday hours.
- Prices or price ranges, and how booking works. A range beats “call us”.
- Guarantees, warranties and policies in writing, with no inflated promises.
- Licences, insurance and real proof of work for the jobs you want more of.
Start from the questions customers actually ask you, not from a brainstorm. Keep one master facts sheet and update every listing from it.
Reviews belong in this step too. Ask every customer for a genuine review in their own words, and reply to every review. Never pay for reviews or write them for customers.
5. Start your baseline before the dashboard arrives
When Business Hub numbers reach you, they’ll mean little without a “before”. Start measuring with your own tools now.
ChatGPT links can carry utm_source=chatgpt.com; Flavio Copes found the tag on every link in his launch-day test, though one test doesn’t prove every link is tagged. In Google Analytics 4, save a report or exploration covering both chatgpt.com referrals and that utm source, and check it monthly. Read the trend over weeks, not days: some ChatGPT visits arrive without the tag and land in Direct, which Search Engine Watch flagged in its launch coverage. Business Hub’s click count measures something different (a click on ChatGPT, not a session on your site), so compare trends, not totals.
Alongside it, ask ChatGPT who it recommends for your service in your area, note whether you appear and whether the details are right, and repeat the same prompts monthly.
Will claiming your profile get you recommended more?
No, not on its own. Business Hub gives you a verified profile and a say in your details. OpenAI says claiming does not guarantee higher placement or sales, and its setup guide says claiming a profile doesn’t change its visibility in ChatGPT.
The practical work hasn’t gone away: make your website accessible to the crawler, publish clear information about your services and keep your business details accurate across the sources that mention you. These are sensible foundations for AI search visibility, not guaranteed recommendation factors. The claim is the badge on top. Our guide to how AI search works covers how AI answers choose sources.
Frequently asked questions
Is it free to claim a business in ChatGPT?
According to Flavio Copes’ walkthrough, OpenAI lists no fee for claiming a business in Business Hub. ChatGPT Ads, which can point to a sponsored Business Agent, are a separate paid product.
What if someone else claims my business first?
Flavio Copes notes that if your listing shows “Contact support” in Business Hub, it’s locked, and you’ll need to ask OpenAI for access. The safest protection is the verification prep above: when your business phone, email and domain are clearly yours, you can prove ownership quickly.
Does blocking GPTBot hide my business from ChatGPT?
No. GPTBot controls whether your content is used to train OpenAI’s models. OAI-SearchBot is the crawler that decides whether your site can appear in ChatGPT search answers. Blocking GPTBot alone doesn’t remove you from search.
Not sure if you’re ready? Get a free readiness assessment
I’ll run a free ChatGPT readiness assessment on your business. I’ll check your published crawler rules, how consistently your business appears across the web and how ChatGPT describes you on a set list of searches, then tell you what’s worth fixing first. I’ll also flag the domain and account access you should confirm on your side. Straight answers, no obligation.
, or see how we approach AI SEO more broadly.