You Can Now Directly Message Brand Customer Service Representatives in ChatGPT, With Initial Access Granted to U.S. E-commerce Businesses

OpenAI is bringing official brand customer service directly into ChatGPT. As reported by The Verge, ChatGPT will allow users to hold conversations with certified Business Agents. These agents are officially designated by their respective brands, and can assist users with tasks like comparison shopping. The feature is first made available to eligible U.S. e-commerce and online service companies, as part of ChatGPT's business feature suite, and is currently in the beta phase.

The usage process is straightforward. Once a business creates a Business Agent, and the agent appears in ChatGPT's generated response, users can start a conversation with it right away. During the chat, users can ask questions about the company's products and services, or follow up to clarify the differences between two specific products. The report notes that companies can customize certain settings for their Business Agent, but public excerpts of the announcement do not expand on the full scope of adjustable parameters. OpenAI's official announcement positions this capability as part of its business feature suite, which launches in beta alongside other enterprise-focused tools.

The biggest change lies in the access entry point. Previously, when users asked ChatGPT about a specific product, they would only get a text response or external links. Now, if a brand has integrated a Business Agent, a new interactive chat entry for that agent will show up in the response. Users no longer need to leave the ChatGPT platform to ask follow-up questions about product details or compare different offerings. For enterprises, this effectively means they can operate a pre-sales consultation window that lives directly inside AI-generated ChatGPT responses.

Right now, this feature is only available to a limited set of U.S.-based businesses. Whether regular users can encounter these Business Agents depends on if a brand has created a public agent that ChatGPT is set to surface in relevant responses. The actual end-user experience will vary based on how each business configures its agent, as well as what scenarios ChatGPT is programmed to display the agent in.