OpenAI’s widely used chatbot, ChatGPT, faced a global outage on Thursday, disrupting services for millions of users. The outage also impacted OpenAI’s API and Sora video generator platforms, leaving businesses and individuals unable to access critical tools for artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

OpenAI's Response

Acknowledging the outage, OpenAI tweeted at 5:45 am (IST): "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."

In an update on its website, OpenAI stated: "We have identified a pathway to recovery, and we are starting to see some traffic successfully return. Continuing to work to return service to normal."

Scope of the Outage

According to Downdetector.com, a website that tracks service disruptions, 2,483 outage reports were logged early Thursday morning. Many users, including businesses relying on OpenAI's API, reported widespread issues.

Subscribers to GPTPro, the premium version of ChatGPT, reported being unable to access the platform, while others experienced slow logins and degraded performance.

Previous Outages

This is not the first time ChatGPT has faced outages. On November 8, the platform was down for 30 minutes, impacting over 19,000 users globally. At the time, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue, tweeting: "We are much, much better at reliability than we used to be, but clearly more work in front of us."

In June, ChatGPT experienced a more prolonged disruption, lasting over five hours.

Rapid Growth Amid Challenges

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has rapidly gained popularity, boasting 250 million weekly active users. Earlier this month, Altman announced that OpenAI’s technology was reaching 300 million active users weekly.

OpenAI’s valuation has surged from $14 billion in 2021 to $157 billion, with annual revenues climbing to $3.6 billion.

While OpenAI works to resolve the current issue, the outage underscores the growing dependence on AI tools like ChatGPT for both personal and professional use. With its rapidly expanding user base, OpenAI faces mounting pressure to ensure the platform’s reliability and performance as it continues to revolutionize the AI landscape.