The world’s most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, went offline for thousands of users on Wednesday, leaving many frustrated and searching for answers. Reports of disruptions started pouring in shortly after 11 am, according to Downdetector, a service that tracks online platforms and outages.
By midday, users across India, the United States, and Europe flagged issues ranging from failed responses to complete network errors on both the website and the mobile app.
How Many Users Were Affected?
Initial reports suggest that hundreds of users flagged problems within 20 minutes of the outage. At its peak, over 500 users in India alone reported issues, while thousands globally experienced disruptions. By 3:30 pm, reports had dropped significantly, with only 42 users still facing issues.
- 85% of complaints were linked to ChatGPT not responding.
- 13% of users reported problems with the OpenAI website.
- 2% flagged disruptions with Writing Coach, an integrated tool.
OpenAI’s Response
As of now, OpenAI has not released an official statement regarding the cause of the outage. Some users reported that the service was working intermittently, while others continued to face errors, suggesting that the problem may have been partially resolved but not completely fixed.
Past ChatGPT Outages
This is not the first time ChatGPT has gone dark. The platform has experienced several major outages in recent months:
- January 23, 2025: A global outage lasting over three hours disrupted users across Spain, Argentina, and the United States.
- December 26, 2024: A technical glitch caused widespread downtime.
- February 5, 2025: Over 22,000 outage reports were filed worldwide as ChatGPT remained inaccessible.
- September 2025: A string of shorter outages occurred between September 1 and September 3, with disruptions lasting up to 10 minutes each.
What This Outage Means for Users
ChatGPT has become a critical tool for millions of people—students, businesses, and professionals alike. Outages highlight both the massive dependency on AI platforms and the challenges of keeping such large-scale systems consistently available. While downtime is usually short-lived, it often pushes users to explore alternatives or diversify their tools.