OpenAI is facing a major disruption with its AI tool, ChatGPT, as users experienced a series of technical difficulties on Thursday afternoon. The popular chatbot, used by millions worldwide, failed to respond to numerous queries, leaving many users frustrated and confused.
Widespread Outage Affects Users
Reports flooded in across social media, with users detailing issues ranging from unresponsive queries to error messages like “internal server error.” According to DownDetector.com, the outage started at approximately 1:30 p.m. EST and gradually declined by 2:30 p.m., though users continued to experience intermittent failures.
Around 92% of affected users reported issues directly with ChatGPT, while a smaller number pointed to problems with the API and website access. At 2 p.m., OpenAI posted an update on its status page acknowledging the issue. The company noted that ChatGPT and its API, alongside the Sora text-to-video generator, were encountering high error rates.
Cause and Update from OpenAI
To keep users informed, OpenAI updated the status page at 2:18 p.m. The company stated that a disruption occurred due to an upstream provider and reassured users that they were actively monitoring the situation. However, as of 3 p.m., there was no official timeline for when the issue would be resolved, leaving users awaiting updates.
Many vented their frustrations on social media, with one user remarking, “Being down right after Christmas is crazy!” Others expressed disappointment over not being able to access essential features, with some commenting about previous outages.
OpenAI’s Response and User Reactions
As the issues persisted, users took to platforms like Twitter, sharing complaints and anecdotes of earlier ChatGPT outages. Some users mentioned past downtime lasting hours, while others anxiously awaited a solution to continue their work.
OpenAI is continuing to investigate the issue and will provide further updates. As of now, users are waiting for a resolution.
Stay updated on ChatGPT’s recovery and more tech news by following TechHubspot for more.