Ask ChatGPT about your business today and it will answer from whatever it can find, which might be your website or a directory listing you forgot about. Until this week you had no way to correct it.
On November 10, 2026, OpenAI opened Businesses in ChatGPT in beta. You can now claim your business in a dashboard called Business Hub, correct the details ChatGPT shows, and see how often you come up. OpenAI says 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT each week.
We read the launch post, the help article, and both policies. This is the whole process, in order, with the parts that will slow you down.
There are two approvals
Claiming and verifying are separate reviews, and each one unlocks different things.
The first is the claim. You prove a connection to the business by phone, email, DNS record, or Shopify. OpenAI reviews it and emails a decision. An approved claim gets you into Business Hub, and little else.
The second is identity verification through Persona, a third-party ID service. Until Persona is approved you can't publish changes, connect a product feed, see insights, or create an agent. The blue check comes from this step too. OpenAI's landing page says the check shows a business has "been claimed," but the help article is more exact: claiming alone doesn't give a profile the badge.
Plan for both before you start.
What to have ready
- A ChatGPT account that should own the profile long term. Use a shared company login or a founder's account. Access gets tangled when the claim sits on an intern's personal account.
- Access to one of these: the business phone number on your listing, an email address associated with the business, your domain's DNS settings, or your Shopify admin.
- A government-issued ID for the person verifying.
- Your business registration details, including the legal name, address, and any registration or tax number, written the way they appear on official records.
- Proof you're authorized to represent the business, if you aren't the owner.
- Your logo, a cover photo, a short description, and your delivery and return policies if you sell things.
Step 1. Find your listing
Sign in to ChatGPT and open Business Hub from the sidebar. Search for your business by name. Select the listing that matches and confirm which ChatGPT account will manage it.
Three things can happen here that aren't the normal path.
You got an email invitation. Open the personal link and sign in with the address that received it.
You see Contact support. The listing is locked. This is the default for location profiles of brands on a managed claim process. Select Contact support and ask for access.
You can't find the business. If you run an eligible online business, you may see an option to add it. Local stores and restaurants can't add themselves yet. They can only claim a U.S. listing that already exists.
Step 2. Prove the connection
Business Hub shows the verification methods available for your business. You may not see all four.
Business phone. Choose a text message or an automated call, select Get code, and enter the code. The code goes to the number shown on the listing. If that number is an old line or a phone tree that can't receive texts, pick the call option or a different method.
Business email. Select Get code and enter the code sent to the email address associated with your business. Same catch as the phone: it has to be an inbox someone can open.
Website domain. ChatGPT shows you a TXT record. Add it to your domain's DNS settings, come back, and select Verify domain. This is the method we'd pick for most organizations, because it doesn't depend on a phone number or an inbox being right.
Shopify store. Select Connect Shopify, review the permissions, and log in to the store for the business you're claiming.
The DNS record, in detail
A TXT record is a line of text attached to your domain. Adding one changes nothing about your website or email. Its only job is to prove that whoever asked for it controls the domain.
OpenAI's instruction is to copy the type, the name or host, and the value exactly. The host field is where records go wrong. Most DNS providers add your domain to whatever you type. If the record is for the root domain, the host is usually @. If ChatGPT gives you a name with a prefix, many providers want only the prefix, and typing the full name creates a record at prefix.example.com.example.com that will never verify.
Add the new record alongside what's there. Your domain likely already has TXT records for email, and replacing one of those can break mail delivery.
Then check it before you click anything. From a terminal:
dig TXT example.com +short
Use the full record name from ChatGPT in place of example.com if it has a prefix. When the value comes back, select Verify domain. DNS changes can take a few minutes or a few hours to appear, depending on your provider. If someone else manages your domain, send them the three fields and ask them to add the record.
Step 3. Wait for the claim decision
OpenAI reviews the claim and emails you a decision or a request for more information. There's no published timeline. The help article says only that review time varies.
Don't resubmit while a review is open. OpenAI asks you to wait for the review to finish before trying again. If you started the wrong claim, select Cancel claim.
Step 4. Verify your identity with Persona
Once the claim is approved, open the Business tab, select your profile, and find Complete verification with Persona in the overview. Select Verify and follow Persona's prompts.
Expect to show a government-issued ID, give your business registration information, and prove you're authorized to act for the business. The detail that fails people is a mismatch. OpenAI says the business name, address, and any registration or tax number must match your official records. If your state filing says "Riverside Animal Rescue, Inc." and you type "Riverside Rescue," expect a rejection.
One warning for new profiles. If you're creating a profile that didn't exist, OpenAI's approval of your Persona check publishes it automatically. There is no separate publish step, and OpenAI Support can't delete, unpublish, or hide a published profile. Finish your details before you submit.
Then you wait again. Submitting to Persona is not approval. If the check fails or expires, the email will say what to do, and a Try again option may appear.
Step 5. Fix your information
With both approvals done, open your profile and update it. You can edit your website, business description, product or service category, logo, delivery policy, and return policy. You can add a cover photo and other optional details.
Two things to expect. OpenAI reviews changes before publishing them, so an edit isn't live when you save it. And your profile is one source among several. The policy says profiles "may also include information from other sources," and the help article says ChatGPT may draw on other sources when it answers. If your website says one thing and your profile says another, fix the website too.
If you sell products, you can connect a feed with prices and availability. Shopify stores can connect their catalog. Everyone else can upload a CSV or link to a hosted feed file that follows OpenAI's product feed specification.
What the insights tell you
Insights cover the past 28 days and show three things.
Mentions count differently by business type. For an online business, a mention counts when ChatGPT references your website. Your brand name appearing in an answer doesn't count on its own. For a local business, a mention counts when ChatGPT shows a result for that location, even if nobody opens it.
Website clicks are the number of times people clicked through to your site.
Discovery topics are themes from the answers that mentioned or cited you. They are grouped categories. You won't see individual prompts, and you won't see conversations, including chats with your own agent.
A blank number doesn't mean zero. OpenAI only reports a metric once activity passes a threshold, so a small organization may see empty panels for a while.
Business Agents are a separate, smaller program
A Business Agent is a chat that answers customer questions using information you provide. It opens from your profile, it's labeled, and it's separate from ChatGPT's own answers.
For now it's limited to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the U.S. with a website, and the Business Agents policy says verification alone doesn't guarantee eligibility. The agent can explain products and policies and link to your site. It can't complete a purchase, make a booking, or look up an order.
You can manage a profile without ever being eligible for an agent. If you are eligible, preview it with a question customers ask often, fix what it gets wrong, and select Publish only when the answers hold up.
What claiming won't do
OpenAI says claiming doesn't guarantee higher placement or sales. ChatGPT keeps making its own recommendations and comparisons, and advertising doesn't influence those answers.
Claiming also doesn't change whether you appear. ChatGPT may show information about your business whether or not you've claimed it. The same is true of a dispute over ownership.
What you get is control over the facts and a first look at the numbers. If you want ChatGPT to cite you more often, that work still happens on your own site. We covered it in how to get cited by AI.
Is it worth doing now?
Yes, for most organizations with a website. It costs nothing beyond the time, and the DNS record takes about ten minutes if you have access. Eligibility depends on industry and location, so the fastest way to find out is to search for your name in Business Hub.
The reason not to wait is ownership. A claim ties your profile to one ChatGPT account. If a former employee or an old agency claims it first, you'll be filing a dispute through Persona to get it back.
If your DNS lives with us, or you'd like someone to handle the claim with you, get in touch.
Common questions
Does claiming cost anything? OpenAI's help article says you don't need an Ads account or a ChatGPT Enterprise agreement to claim an eligible business. Claiming, publishing an agent, and advertising are three separate things.
Will claiming make ChatGPT recommend us more often? No. OpenAI says claiming doesn't guarantee higher placement or sales, and that ChatGPT keeps making independent recommendations. Advertising doesn't change those answers either.
How long does approval take? OpenAI doesn't publish a timeline. Its help article says review time varies, and that you'll get an email with a decision or a request for more information.
Can our agency or a teammate manage the profile? Yes. The admin who claimed the business can add teammates in Business Hub and grant an agency access. Each person uses their own ChatGPT account. Don't forward a personal claim invitation to hand someone access.
We have several locations. Do we claim them all at once? No. Each brand is managed separately, and claiming the main brand doesn't claim its locations. Central management across brands and locations isn't available yet.
Someone else already claimed our business. What now? Open the profile, select the more options menu, then Dispute ownership. You'll verify through Persona that you're authorized to represent the business.
