ChatGPT, the widely recognized artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, has been restored after experiencing a period of downtime. Thousands of users reported issues accessing the service on Thursday, according to Downdetector, a website that monitors online service disruptions.
Reports of the outage peaked at over 10,000 in the UK. Users encountered error messages when attempting to connect.
OpenAI’s status page indicated that a solution was implemented at 15:09 GMT, and the company confirmed it was closely monitoring the system following the fix. The outage began at approximately 11:00 GMT on the same day.
While OpenAI has not yet released an official statement regarding the cause of the disruption, the incident generated considerable discussion on social media platforms.
Many users took to X (formerly Twitter) to share their experiences and the inconvenience caused by the temporary unavailability of the AI tool. Some users on X also injected humor into their posts about the situation.
“ChatGPT is down again? During the work day? So you’re telling me I have to… THINK?!”, joked one user.
OpenAI’s official status page indicated that the application was experiencing a higher-than-usual number of errors, prompting an investigation by the company.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has generated significant global interest and spurred substantial investment in the field of generative AI.
According to OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, ChatGPT had a weekly user base exceeding 300 million people worldwide by December 2024.
While a free version of the chatbot is available, OpenAI offers various subscription plans with fees reaching up to $200 per month.
This incident follows pledges from technology companies, including OpenAI, to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure within the United States.
