OpenAI’s flagship AI assistant, ChatGPT, faced a major service interruption on Monday, causing widespread inconvenience for its massive user base across the globe.
Tracking service Downdetector first began logging incident reports at approximately 12:10pm IST. The UK saw more than 1,000 user complaints, while the US reported close to 500. The disruption impacted both the desktop version and mobile application of ChatGPT.
Frustrated users encountered an error screen that urged them to seek assistance through the help center—although the provided link was inaccessible. Social media sites, particularly X (formerly Twitter), were soon flooded with posts lamenting the sudden blackout.
The technical fault didn’t just affect English-speaking users. Complaints emerged from India, Japan, and numerous other countries. “The moment ChatGPT stopped working, I realized GPT-4o had become part of my daily routine,” a user from Asia commented online.
OpenAI responded by updating its system status page, confirming an active partial outage. The issue has persisted for several hours, with noticeable delays and increased error frequencies reported in several of its services—including ChatGPT, Sora, file uploads, image generation tools like DALL·E, and GPT-4o’s voice and vision features.
Despite the scope of the disruption, the exact cause remains unclear. Engineers are currently working to identify and resolve the issue.
As users anxiously wait for normal operations to resume, the disruption has prompted humorous and serious reactions alike. One user joked, “ChatGPT is down—what if someone asks me who I am?” Others expressed genuine concern over their reliance on the tool, underscoring how deeply embedded such AI assistants have become in professional and personal workflows.
ChatGPT, which boasts a weekly user base exceeding 400 million, continues to experience growing demand. The current outage has emphasized not only the platform’s popularity but also the challenges of ensuring stability at such scale.
