ChatGPT faces global outage; users flood social media with complaints 

Many frustrated users took to social media platforms like X on Thursday to report that ChatGPT was not working for them. The complaints indicate that the issue is widespread, with reports coming in from different countries

New Delhi: ChatGPT, one of OpenAI’s most popular Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools on Thursday faced a global outage as millions of users were unable to access the service.

Many frustrated users took to social media platforms like X on Thursday to report that ChatGPT was not working for them. The complaints indicate that the issue is widespread, with reports coming in from different countries.

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According to Downdetector, a platform that tracks online outages, thousands of users have been affected by the outage. The website’s data showed a sudden spike in ChatGPT outage reports early this morning, and the numbers continue to rise as more people face issues.

Some users are struggling to log in, while others say the AI is not responding to commands at all. The heat map (a technique that uses colour to represent data values) on Downdetector confirms that the outage is based on user-submitted complaints. So far, nearly 90 per cent of users have reported problems with the ChatGPT app, while others are facing issues on the website as well.

OpenAI has not yet shared any official statement on the cause or extent of the outage.

Meanwhile, frustrated users are flooding X with posts and memes about the situation. One user humorously wrote, “Today, I lost access to ChatGPT for 20 minutes, and it felt like it was 2015 and Google Search had gone offline for a couple of hours.”

 Another user added “Everyone coming to X to confirm chatgpt down” with a meme. “ChatGPT down again ??! surprised not surprised !!!,” a user said. Another X user also chimed in, “Chatgpt is always down in the middle of doing my assignment.” “Watching everyone freak out when Chatgpt is down and they have to use their brains we truly r doomed,” another user added.

Meanwhile, today’s outage is not the first time ChatGPT has faced technical issues. Recently, on January 23, the AI chatbot experienced a similar global disruption, preventing users from accessing it on both the web and the app.

During that outage, Downdetector recorded over a thousand user complaints, with many frustrated users taking to X to share their concerns about the malfunction.