OpenAI is looking to deepen its enterprise strategy with its latest release, Businesses in ChatGPT.
The new offering demonstrates how the vendor is trying to prove to enterprises that it can be trusted as much as its archrival, Anthropic, which is riding a wave of success with enterprises and is set to execute what is expected to be the biggest IPO ever for a startup next week.
Introduced on Tuesday, Businesses in ChatGPT, still in beta, provides companies with new ways to connect with users of the popular AI chatbot.
With the Business Hub feature, companies can identify their businesses on ChatGPT, manage their information, and see insights on how consumers engage with their company on ChatGPT. Business Agent, another feature, lets businesses engage with users by answering questions and helping people explore what they offer.
OpenAI said existing OpenAI Enterprise customers and advertisers can work with OpenAI representatives to claim their business. Shopify merchants can connect their business to the new platform.
The new product competes directly with Google Business Profile, which also enables businesses to identify their company, verify and update their information.
The move shows how OpenAI continues to evolve and target enterprises. While the generative AI vendor has struggled in the past to retain enterprise customers compared with Anthropic, it has recently been refining its product offerings to make them more attractive to enterprises.
“The willingness to be a bit more open to vertical-specific solutions is important for OpenAI when it comes to the enterprise outreach,” said Lian Jye Su, an analyst with Omdia, a division of Informa TechTarget.
Trying to gain enterprise trust
He added that the more OpenAI offers products such as Businesses in ChatGPT, the more it encourages enterprises to trust OpenAI.
“It gives enterprises a bit more reassurance when it comes to deploying OpenAI solutions in their business processes,” Su said, adding that more enterprises view Anthropic as a safer option and therefore have trusted the Claude maker more than OpenAI.
“This is OpenAI’s counter to that perception,” Su continued, adding that by including Shopify as a part of this release, OpenAI helped ease the worries enterprises have about integrating with ChatGPT. For heavy OpenAI users, the product will further embed them in the OpenAI ecosystem.
However, OpenAI will need to do more to alleviate concerns about its ability to protect user privacy, he said.
“There are legitimate concerns around how much OpenAI will take away from these clients,” he said, adding there is a need for the ChatGPT maker to make it clear to enterprises that it is not taking and using customer data.
Other than that, concerns about agents going out of control might also worry enterprises considering using Businesses in ChatGPT.
A new target
Nevertheless, Businesses in ChatGPT could challenge SaaS providers such as Salesforce and SAP, Su said.
Salesforce offers the Agentforce Shopper Agent that enables enterprises to develop custom AI agents within their messaging channels to answer product questions or complete orders. SAP also has a similar Shopping Agent.
“This is OpenAI … trying to attack an existing market rather than try to create something completely different,” Su said.
Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host and producer covering AI technology.
