ChatGPT Experiences Frequent Downtime, Service Restored After Several Hours

On Tuesday, OpenAI's ChatGPT service experienced a significant outage that left users worldwide unable to access the popular AI chatbot for several hours. The initial disruption occurred in the early morning, causing a complete service shutdown. OpenAI promptly updated its status page, indicating that it was investigating the issue. However, around 10:30 AM Eastern Time, another major outage struck ChatGPT, with reports of problems surging into the thousands on Downdetector.

During this second round of outages, users of both the ChatGPT mobile app and web version widely reported being unable to receive responses from the AI. Fortunately, around 1:17 PM, OpenAI announced that the issues had been resolved and the service was back to normal.

Interestingly, while ChatGPT was down, some users also reported issues with other AI services, including Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude AI, and Perplexity AI's web search functions. These services, however, quickly regained functionality, with Google Gemini and Claude AI becoming accessible shortly after the outage, and Perplexity AI confirming the restoration of its search tool around 1:30 PM Eastern Time.

The last major outage occurred in November, lasting approximately 90 minutes and affecting OpenAI's API services. Following that incident, OpenAI revealed that it was linked to a DDoS attack. However, this latest disruption did not appear to impact the API’s functionality.

Last month, Microsoft faced a similar outage that temporarily disabled ChatGPT's search features and the Copilot service, highlighting the interconnectedness and reliance of these systems.

As of now, OpenAI has not disclosed the specific cause of the ChatGPT outage but has committed to monitoring service conditions closely to prevent future incidents. As a leading product in the AI sector, the stability and reliability of ChatGPT are essential for maintaining user trust and meeting the growing demand.