OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT suffered a major outage on Tuesday, leaving many users unable to access the service properly.
ChatGPT, which launched in November 2022, quickly became a global phenomenon, now used by over 500 million people worldwide. The AI tool mimics human conversation and generates readable responses using vast amounts of online text.
Trouble began early Tuesday morning, with OpenAI first noting issues just after 7.30am. By 11.30am, the company confirmed that users were facing “elevated error rates and latency” across multiple services.
Some users saw error messages saying, “Hmmm… something seems to have gone wrong,” while others got network error alerts, urging them to check their internet connection or visit OpenAI’s help centre.
Complaints flooded social media and Down Detector. Many users said the app had slowed down or stopped responding altogether.
By the afternoon, OpenAI said it had identified the cause of the issue, though the platform was still experiencing “degraded performance” as recovery efforts continued around 5.30pm.
The outage comes amid growing attention on AI tools and their impact on everyday life. Critics warn AI could threaten jobs and creativity, while supporters highlight its ability to boost productivity.
OpenAI, valued at around $300 billion, recently introduced new features like GPT-4o image generation, available even for free users.
