ChatGPT Takes On GEO Startups With New Business Hub

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First OpenAI shows companies how often they appear in ChatGPT, then it sells them ways to appear more often.

OpenAI has launched "Businesses in ChatGPT" in beta. The offering is designed to give companies a new way to reach the 1.2 billion people who, according to OpenAI, use ChatGPT every week. At its core is a dedicated area called Business Hub, where companies can claim their business in ChatGPT, manage their information and view insights. On top of that come Business Agents, AI agents through which companies talk directly to customers inside ChatGPT.

What the Business Hub Does

In the Business Hub, companies can claim their business and, once verified, update key details and upload product feeds with pricing and availability. This is open to all eligible businesses located wherever ChatGPT is available, including Europe. Shopify merchants can connect their store directly, and their products are already integrated into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog.

The hub also provides metrics: how often a business is mentioned in ChatGPT, how many clicks its website receives and the "discovery topics," the themes for which its website is cited. According to OpenAI, businesses do not see the conversations themselves; data is aggregated and only shown once a minimum number of conversations is reached. The package strongly resembles Google’s Business Profiles and Search Console, which Google has used to tie millions of small businesses to its platform.

Bad News for GEO Startups

For an entire startup scene, this is a declaration of war. Around generative engine optimization (GEO), the practice of optimizing for answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and similar tools, numerous companies have emerged over the past two years selling exactly what OpenAI now offers itself: insights into how often a brand appears in AI answers and on which topics. They include Vienna-based OtterlyAI, Berlin’s Peec AI and New York’s Profound. So far, they have relied on simulated prompts and estimates, while OpenAI has the real usage data.

OpenAI will not push the GEO providers out entirely for now, though. The Business Hub only covers ChatGPT, not Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s AI Overviews, and it offers neither specific prompts nor competitor comparisons. That remains the domain of startups that track several AI platforms at once. Google offers a precedent: its free Search Console did not make SEO tools such as Semrush or Sistrix obsolete.

Business Agents: Advice on Behalf of the Brand

Once a company has claimed its profile, it can build, test and launch a Business Agent. When the business appears in a ChatGPT answer, users can open its profile and start a conversation with the agent, for example to compare two products or ask which features suit their needs. According to OpenAI, this conversation is clearly labeled and kept separate from the original conversation and from ChatGPT’s independent answers. For now, Business Agents are only available to e-commerce and online service businesses in the U.S.

The Business Model: Measure First, Then Sell

The metrics in the hub relate to organic answers. But anyone who sees their visibility as a daily number wants it to go up, and OpenAI supplies the matching product right away: companies can sponsor their Business Agent and use it as the destination for ChatGPT ads. Clicking such an ad leads not to a website but straight into a conversation with the brand’s agent. According to OpenAI, sponsored placements are clearly labeled and separate from its answers.

Through claimed profiles, OpenAI also gains direct contact with many companies that have never bought advertising on ChatGPT. And the ad business is growing quickly: OpenAI has been testing ads in the U.S. since February, the business reached an annualized revenue run rate of $1 billion in September according to OpenAI, and in October the company reported more than 100,000 advertisers in 89 countries. That matters for OpenAI, because only a small share of users pay for a subscription while data center costs keep rising. OpenAI itself calls the launch an "early step" and plans to expand Businesses in ChatGPT and Business Agents to more markets and categories.

Where Answers End and Advertising Begins

OpenAI stresses that user trust remains its "North Star." Critics see exactly that as the problem: when the same company shows businesses their visibility in answers while selling them paid agent conversations, it becomes harder to tell independent recommendations from advertising, even if both are labeled. SEO experts such as Matthäus Michalik also criticize that companies cannot see which specific prompts lead to their mentions.

It is also unclear whether users want to talk to brand agents at all. And if AI agents start shopping and comparing on their own, classic advertising could lose its impact anyway, as Trending Topics has already analyzed.

Competition for Business Customers

With this move, OpenAI takes direct aim at Google, whose search business now accounts for less than half of its revenue and which is building ads into its own AI answers. Meta, with its Muse agent, is relying more on transaction fees and on AI agents for businesses in WhatsApp. Business Agents should not be confused with ChatGPT’s Workspace Agents, which companies use to automate internal workflows: those are part of subscription plans, while Business Agents are also meant to generate revenue through advertising.