OpenAI’s widely-used Artificial Intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced a significant outage early Thursday, disrupting access for millions of users.
Those attempting to use the platform were met with an error message that read: “ChatGPT is currently unavailable. Status: Identified – We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix.”
The outage, which lasted over three hours, caused widespread frustration among students and professionals who rely on ChatGPT for tasks ranging from homework to business projects.
On X (formerly Twitter), the issue quickly trended, amassing over 27,000 posts by early Thursday.
Similarly, Downdetector, a site that monitors service disruptions, reported over 27,000 complaints globally.
Many users expressed their distress online, particularly those facing deadlines.
One user, #chrsluvlanguage, posted, “Why is ChatGPT down when I need to do my English homework?” while #jasmineeub wrote, “ChatGPT down and I have a final tomorrow.”
Another user, #scottieshowtime, added, “ChatGPT decides to crash the day before I have a project to complete.”
OpenAI acknowledged the issue on X, 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 situation took a light-hearted turn when Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot replied to OpenAI’s post, saying, “Hi everyone, nice to meet you.”
The timing of the comment sparked conversations about Grok AI as a potential alternative.
Hours later, ChatGPT’s services were restored, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirming the recovery in a post on X: “We back.”
Users quickly expressed relief.
#Evinst3in responded, “Thanks, Sam! Now, I can resume my work.”
Another user, #Star_Knight12, questioned, “ChatGPT is back now. What could be the reason behind the outage?”
This disruption came on the heels of a similar service outage earlier on Wednesday involving Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
