{"id":19345,"date":"2026-11-11T12:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T10:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/?p=19345"},"modified":"2026-11-11T14:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T12:41:31","slug":"chatgpts-new-business-hub-you-own-your-brand-but-not-how-ai-represents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/news-and-resources\/chatgpts-new-business-hub-you-own-your-brand-but-not-how-ai-represents\/","title":{"rendered":"ChatGPT\u2019s New Business Hub: You Own Your Brand, But Not How AI Represents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joe Comotto, Director of Digital Experience at Incubeta, weighs in on OpenAI\u2019s new Businesses in ChatGPT launch, highlighting that although brands can now claim their presence in ChatGPT, they still don\u2019t control how AI represents them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As more people turn to ChatGPT and other AI platforms to research brands, compare products and make decisions, these platforms are increasingly shaping how businesses are perceived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re pulling together information from websites, reviews, third-party sources and other content to form their own understanding of your business. And that understanding isn’t always accurate, up to date or how you’d necessarily want your brand to be represented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ChatGPT is Giving Businesses Some Control Back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

OpenAI has just announced Businesses in ChatGPT<\/strong><\/a>, now in beta, giving businesses a way to claim and manage their presence within ChatGPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’ve worked in SEO for any length of time, this should sound familiar. It’s very similar to what Google did with Google My Business (now Google Business Profile), allowing businesses to claim their listings, verify their details and have more influence over how they appear in search. OpenAI is now introducing something similar for ChatGPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through its new Business Hub, eligible businesses will be able to claim their presence, manage key information, submit product data and access reporting. Users will also be able to explore business profiles directly within ChatGPT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this doesn’t mean businesses can control what ChatGPT says about them. Outside of ads, its recommendations will still be independent, but it does provide a more direct way to ensure the information it’s working with is accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For SEO teams, the process of claiming, verifying and maintaining a business profile is nothing new. It’s another platform where those same principles will need to be applied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reporting is Interesting, But Don’t Expect Another Google Search Console<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the more welcome parts of the announcement is the introduction of reporting. Until now, measuring how brands appear within AI platforms has largely meant relying on third-party GEO tools, tracking prompts, analyzing citations and looking at referral traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OpenAI is now introducing first-party reporting covering brand mentions, website clicks and the topics associated with your business. That’s useful, particularly when we know more of the research and consideration journey is happening without people necessarily clicking through to a website. But there are limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting will be aggregated, and you won’t get access to individual conversations or the exact prompts people are using; additionally insights will only be available once a certain conversation threshold has been reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also won’t necessarily tell you why your brand was recommended, how often competitors were preferred, whether the information was accurate or what influenced the recommendation in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are some of the more important questions we’re trying to answer through GEO measurement today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it’s a welcome addition, and another useful source of data, but it doesn’t replace the need for independent tracking and a broader view of how your brand is performing across AI platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Customer Journey Is Moving Beyond Your Website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Something else worth paying attention to is the introduction of Business Agents. Initially available to certain ecommerce and online service businesses in the US, these will allow businesses to offer their own conversational experiences within ChatGPT. Think about what that could mean for the customer journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, explores a business profile and then interacts with that business directly to ask questions about products or services. Potentially, a significant part of their research and decision-making happens before they ever reach the website. This is where I think the announcement becomes particularly relevant to Digital Experience, rather than just SEO or GEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve traditionally spent a lot of time optimizing websites to help customers find what they need and ultimately convert. That work is still important, but we’re increasingly having to consider the experiences customers have with our brands on platforms we don’t own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That includes the information they’re being shown, how accurately a business is represented, the confidence those recommendations create and how easily someone can move towards taking action. It’s also why I don’t see GEO as something entirely separate from SEO or the wider Digital Experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the foundations are the same. Good content, accurate information, clear site structure, structured data and a strong reputation all matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s changing is where that information is being used and how people are interacting with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Should Businesses Do Now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For now, I’d suggest looking into claiming your business within ChatGPT, much as you would with a Google Business Profile. Make sure the information is accurate, understand what data is available and start monitoring how your brand is being represented. However, it\u2019s important that you don’t assume that claiming a profile means the job is done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your website, content, reviews, third-party mentions and wider digital presence will still play an important role in how AI systems understand and recommend your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as ChatGPT and other platforms start supporting more of the customer journey themselves, we’ll need to think beyond simply getting our brands mentioned or cited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might not control how AI represents your brand, but you can influence the information it uses and increasingly the experiences customers have with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, that’s the bigger takeaway from this announcement. It’s not just about managing another business listing. It’s another reminder that Digital Experience is no longer confined to your own website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Comotto, Director of Digital Experience at Incubeta, weighs in on OpenAI\u2019s new Businesses in ChatGPT launch, highlighting that although brands can now claim their presence in ChatGPT, they still don\u2019t control how AI represents them. As more people turn to ChatGPT and other AI platforms to research brands, compare products and make decisions, these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[221,326],"approach":[],"solution":[],"industry":[50],"market":[23],"class_list":["post-19345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-ai","tag-chatgpt","industry-global","market-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19350,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19345\/revisions\/19350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"approach","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/approach?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"solution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/solution?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=19345"},{"taxonomy":"market","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/market?post=19345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}