Welcome everyone to Episode #96 of the Chiropractic Marketing Podcast.
I’m your host, Dr. Patrick MacNamara, and this week OpenAI gave businesses something they’ve never had before: a way to claim their listing inside ChatGPT and actually see how often ChatGPT puts them in front of people. Today I’m going to walk you through what launched, what your practice can do with it right now, and just as important, what it doesn’t change.
I’m getting this episode out a little ahead of my normal schedule, and that’s on purpose. OpenAI announced this on November 10th, and I didn’t want you hearing about it weeks from now, after the practices down the street have already claimed their listings.
So let’s start with what this actually is. OpenAI calls it Businesses in ChatGPT, and it runs through something called Business Hub, which you’ll find in the ChatGPT sidebar. Business Hub lets you claim your business, keep its information current, and see how people are engaging with it inside ChatGPT. It’s in beta, and it’s free at launch. If you’ve ever claimed a Google Business Profile, a lot of this is going to feel familiar. That’s not an accident. OpenAI is building its own version of the listing layer that Google has owned for years.
Now, there are really two pieces to this announcement, and I want to be clear about which one applies to you. The first is the business profile. The second is something OpenAI calls a business agent, which is an AI assistant that answers customer questions about a company’s products and policies right inside ChatGPT. That agent is getting a lot of the headlines. But at launch, it’s only available to eligible ecommerce and online service businesses in the United States that have a website and meet OpenAI’s Business Agents Policy. A local chiropractic clinic isn’t who that’s built for right now. And even for the businesses that do qualify, the agent can’t book appointments. It explains things and links back to the website. So don’t rearrange anything around the agent yet.
The profile is the piece that matters for you. According to OpenAI’s help documentation, you can claim an existing business, or in some cases add a new one, where ChatGPT is available and where OpenAI supports the verification that’s required. Availability depends on the business’s location and type. And here’s the detail I’d pay attention to: local stores and restaurants can currently claim only an existing U.S. listing. They can’t create one from scratch. OpenAI doesn’t call out clinics or healthcare practices specifically, so my advice is to treat your practice the same way. If ChatGPT already has a listing for you, you can very likely claim it. If it doesn’t, you may not be able to add one yet. This is a beta, and I fully expect those rules to loosen over time.
So how do you actually get started? You sign in to ChatGPT, open Business Hub from the sidebar, and search for your practice by name. When you find the listing that matches, you select it and confirm which ChatGPT account you’ll use to manage it. Pause on that for a second. Use an account the practice controls long term, not your front desk coordinator’s personal login. You don’t want to be locked out of your own listing a year from now because someone moved on.
Next, you verify that you’re connected to the business. OpenAI gives you a few ways to do that. You can get a code by text message or automated call to the business phone number, get a code sent to your business email, add a verification record to your website domain’s DNS settings, or connect a Shopify store, which won’t apply to most of you. For most practices, the phone option is the simplest. But notice that the code goes to the number on the listing. If the listing has an old number, or a call tracking number that doesn’t ring at your front desk, that becomes a problem fast. If you go the domain route and someone else manages your domain, like your web provider, it’s a quick request to them to add the record for you. Once you submit, OpenAI reviews the claim and emails you a decision or a request for more information. And if you find that someone else has already claimed your practice, whether that’s a former employee or a marketing vendor you stopped working with years ago, there’s a dispute ownership option to get it back.
Here’s the part a lot of people are going to miss. Claiming your business on its own doesn’t get you very far. It doesn’t give you the blue verified check, it doesn’t let you publish changes, and it doesn’t let you see your insights. For all of that, you have to complete a separate identity verification through a company called Persona. You may need a government-issued ID, your business registration information, and proof that you’re authorized to represent the practice. I’m going to come back to that ID piece in a few minutes, because it’s already raised a real concern with one of the doctors I work with.
And this is where something I talk about all the time comes back around. OpenAI’s own help page says that if your Persona check fails, you should make sure the business name, address, and any registration or tax number you provide match your official business records. If your practice is one name on your state registration, a slightly different name on your sign, and a third version on your Google Business Profile, this is exactly the kind of place where that inconsistency catches up with you. Consistent business information has always mattered for local search. Now it’s literally a requirement to get verified in ChatGPT. If you haven’t looked at how your Google profile is set up in a while, my recent episode on chiropractic GBP categories is a good place to start cleaning things up.
Once your claim and your Persona verification are both approved, you can update your website, your business description, your service category, your logo, and add a cover photo. Two things to keep in mind there. First, OpenAI reviews and publishes those changes, so they don’t show up instantly. Second, ChatGPT may still use other sources when it answers questions about your practice. Your profile is one input. It’s not the whole picture.
Now let’s talk about the main reason I think this is worth doing, even with the limitations. It’s the insights. Inside Business Hub, you’ll see activity over the past twenty-eight days, including mentions, website clicks, and what OpenAI calls discovery topics. For a local business, a mention counts when ChatGPT shows a result for your location, even if the person never opens your listing or visits your website. Think about what that means. Up until now, the only way to know whether ChatGPT was recommending your practice was to sit there typing prompts and hoping the answers were representative. Back in the episode on how ChatGPT recommends chiropractors, I walked through how ChatGPT decides who to put in front of a patient. This is the first time OpenAI is actually giving you a number.
Discovery topics are worth watching too. They show common themes in the ChatGPT answers that mentioned or cited your practice. They don’t show you individual prompts or anyone’s conversation, and OpenAI is clear about that. But if every theme is general back pain and nothing touches the conditions you actually want to be known for, that tells you where your website content needs work. One caution: a blank metric doesn’t necessarily mean zero activity. It can mean you haven’t hit the reporting threshold yet or the data is still being collected. So don’t panic if the numbers are empty in week one.
Here’s what this announcement doesn’t change, and I want you to really hear this part. OpenAI says plainly that claiming your business doesn’t guarantee increased visibility or give you direct control over ChatGPT’s independent recommendations. They also say advertising doesn’t influence those independent answers. So claiming your profile is useful housekeeping. It’s not a ranking strategy.
And that’s exactly why that doctor I mentioned pushed back. After he read my first written breakdown of this, he told me he doesn’t like the idea of sending a government ID to an AI company. And since claiming the profile doesn’t guarantee he’ll be recommended any more often, he said if the ID is required, it’s a deal breaker for him. That’s a reasonable concern, and I’d bet a lot of you listening had the same reaction. So let’s walk through it honestly.
Starting a claim doesn’t require an ID at all. You just verify with a code sent to your business phone or business email, a record added to your website’s DNS, or a Shopify connection. The ID question comes after your claim is approved. That’s the identity check through Persona, which is a third-party verification company. It’s the same company LinkedIn uses for ID verification in many countries. And yes, Persona can ask for a government-issued ID, your business registration details, and proof that you’re authorized to act for the practice.
That ID goes to Persona. You’re not handing it to ChatGPT or typing it into a chat. But I’m not going to pretend that settles it. OpenAI’s business setup page doesn’t spell out exactly what Persona passes back to OpenAI, and giving a copy of your driver’s license to any third party is a real privacy tradeoff. Deciding you’d rather not do that is a completely valid choice.
Just understand what you’re giving up if you opt out. Until that identity check passes, you can’t edit your profile, you can’t see your insights, and you don’t get the verified badge. So in practice, a claim without the ID check gets you very little. And remember, OpenAI says plainly that even a fully verified claim doesn’t guarantee higher placement or more recommendations.
Here’s the part I really want that doctor, and every one of you, to hear. ChatGPT already knows about your practice, claimed profile or not. OpenAI’s own help page says ChatGPT may use other sources when it answers questions about your business. From everything we’ve seen, that means your Google Business Profile, your website, the structured data, or schema, on your site, and your listings across the web. Skipping the claim doesn’t take you out of the running.
Whether ChatGPT recommends your practice still comes down to the fundamentals. An accurate, active Google Business Profile. A consistent name, address, phone number, and hours everywhere you’re listed. And a website with deep, service-specific content and schema that AI tools can read and trust. That’s the whole idea behind Search Everywhere Optimization. Phase one is your Google Business Profile. Phase two is your website. Phase three is Generative Engine Optimization, building the content and topical authority that AI platforms rely on. A ChatGPT business profile sits right alongside phase one. It’s another listing to claim and keep accurate. But phases two and three are what actually earn the mention. If you want to understand how that content side works, go back and listen to Episode 85 on content silos and GEO. And if your website was never built to be understood by AI in the first place, that’s the foundation problem Chiropractic Marketing Websites was built to solve.
So here’s my honest take. If you’re comfortable with the ID check, claim the profile so your details are verified and you can see your insights. If you’re not, wait. The program is in beta, the rules are likely to change, and the work that actually moves recommendations doesn’t depend on it.
If you do decide to claim it this week, here’s how I’d approach it. Open Business Hub and search for your practice. If the listing is there, claim it with an account the practice controls. Before you start the Persona step, pull your legal business name and registration details and make sure they match your listing and your Google profile. Once you’re approved, write your description and choose your category using the same language your website and Google profile already use, so every source tells ChatGPT the same story about you. Then put a reminder on your calendar to check your insights once a month. And if you’ve decided to wait, spend that same hour auditing your Google Business Profile and making sure your name, address, phone number, and hours match everywhere you’re listed. That’s time well spent either way.
A couple of quick notes if you work with an agency or run more than one location. The admin who claims the business can add teammates and grant an agency access, and each person uses their own ChatGPT account. Don’t forward your personal claim invitation to someone else to give them access. And if you have multiple locations, each one is managed separately. Claiming your main brand doesn’t claim your locations.
I’ve put together a full written breakdown of all of this over on the DCRank blog, and you can read it in our guide to the ChatGPT business profile for chiropractors. I’ve also linked to OpenAI’s own setup instructions so you can follow along step by step. And if you want the bigger picture on where this fits, our page on AI visibility for chiropractors lays it all out.
Claiming your profile is the easy part. Earning the recommendation is the real work. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start ranking, head over to DCRank and get started. That’s D-C-Rank dot com, and the link is in the show notes.
Alright, that wraps things up for today’s episode…
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