In a significant disruption, OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced a global outage on Thursday morning, leaving millions of users unable to access its services for nearly three hours.
The outage, which began shortly before 7 PM ET (5:30 AM IST), also affected OpenAI’s API and Sora services, causing widespread inconvenience to businesses and individuals reliant on these tools.
Users attempting to log in were met with error messages stating that the service was unavailable.
Social media platforms were flooded with complaints and expressions of frustration, with many users reporting slow login processes and degraded performance.
According to Downdetector, an outage tracking platform, over 28,000 complaints were registered during the disruption.
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OpenAI quickly acknowledged the issue on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “We’re experiencing an outage right now.
We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. Sorry and we’ll keep you updated!” The company assured users that it was working diligently to restore services.
The outage highlighted the growing dependence on AI tools like ChatGPT in daily operations across industries.
Businesses that integrate OpenAI’s API into their workflows faced significant disruptions, underscoring the challenges posed by such outages in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Despite the inconvenience caused to millions of users, OpenAI successfully resolved the issue within a few hours.
By mid-morning IST, services for ChatGPT, API, and Sora were fully restored. OpenAI confirmed the resolution in another update on X: “ChatGPT, API, and Sora were down today but we’ve recovered.”
This incident follows a series of recent outages affecting major tech platforms. Just a day earlier, Meta’s apps—including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook—also faced global disruptions.
These back-to-back outages serve as a reminder of the vulnerabilities in digital infrastructure and the cascading effects they can have on users worldwide.
While OpenAI has not disclosed specific details about the cause of the outage, its swift response and communication were appreciated by many users.
However, some premium subscribers expressed dissatisfaction over having to face downtime despite paying for advanced services.
As AI tools become more integral to modern life and business operations, ensuring their reliability remains a critical challenge for developers.
For now, ChatGPT is back online, much to the relief of its global user base. OpenAI has assured users that it will continue monitoring the situation to prevent similar incidents in the future.
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