ChatGPT is testing a feature that lets businesses stand inside its own conversations. Instead of just describing a product or company, ChatGPT can now hand the conversation off to a verified "Business Agent" built by that company, which answers questions, compares options, and represents the brand directly.
The rollout starts in beta, limited to eligible e-commerce and online service businesses in the US. The way it works: if a business appears in a ChatGPT response and has set up a Business Agent, the user can opt to keep chatting with that agent instead of the general assistant. It's framed as useful for comparison shopping, where a user might ask about a product category and then drill down into specifics with the company that actually sells it.
This is part of a larger package of business-facing features OpenAI is introducing, signaling that ChatGPT is positioning itself as more than a chatbot for answering questions. It's shaping up as a middle layer between shoppers and businesses, similar to how search engines and marketplaces sit between buyers and sellers today. Verification is central to the pitch: OpenAI wants users to trust that the agent they're chatting with is officially sanctioned by the business, not a hallucinated or imitation chatbot.
Details on how a business applies, what "eligible" means beyond e-commerce and online services, and whether there's a cost to participate have not been fully spelled out. As with many beta features, the initial rollout is narrow, and the criteria will likely evolve as OpenAI gathers data on how people actually use it.
Why it matters
The move fits a pattern playing out across AI platforms this year. Google has been pushing AI-generated shopping overviews, Amazon has its Rufus assistant steering purchase decisions, and Microsoft has layered shopping features into Copilot. Each of these treats the AI assistant as a new storefront window, one that sits between the business and the customer rather than the business controlling its own site or app experience.
What's different here is the format. This isn't a product feed or a sponsored listing — it's a live, branded conversation happening inside someone else's interface. That's a step beyond search ads or shopping carousels, closer to a franchised customer service rep operating on OpenAI's terms, inside OpenAI's product, following OpenAI's rules.
History with "verified business" programs on other platforms — think Google Business Profiles or Meta's verification badges — suggests free beta access is often a starting point, not a permanent arrangement. Placement, prioritization, or expanded features have tended to become paid tiers once a platform proves the feature drives engagement.
What this means for small businesses
For small e-commerce sellers, a Business Agent could mean showing up inside ChatGPT conversations where a shopper is actively comparing options — a potentially useful visibility channel, provided a business qualifies and sets one up correctly. But it also means ceding a piece of the customer conversation to a system built and governed by OpenAI, with rules that can change without much notice.
Setting one up likely requires feeding structured product or service data to OpenAI, similar to the work businesses already do for Google Shopping feeds or marketplace listings. That's an added task, not a plug-and-play switch, and it raises the usual questions about who controls brand voice when an AI is speaking on your behalf to a customer you never see.
What to watch
Watch for OpenAI's eligibility criteria to widen beyond e-commerce and the US, for any announcement of pricing or paid placement tiers, and for competitors — Google, Amazon, or Microsoft — to respond with their own branded-agent programs. Also worth tracking: whether Business Agents can complete transactions directly or only advise, since that distinction determines how much of the sales funnel OpenAI ends up controlling.
The bottom line
Business Agents give ChatGPT a direct line between shoppers and brands, but the eligibility, cost, and control terms are still being written — small businesses considering it should wait for clearer rules before building a strategy around it.