OpenAI’s widely used chatbot ChatGPT experienced a wave of technical problems on Tuesday following a partial system failure that also disrupted the company’s video tool, Sora, and its developer interface.
The company confirmed it began investigating the issue early Tuesday morning, with Downdetector — a platform that monitors outages — showing a sharp rise in problem reports shortly after 5:30 am. At one point, the site logged nearly 2,000 complaints from users encountering errors.
By midday, OpenAI reported signs of recovery for both ChatGPT and its API platform, though engineers warned that a full resolution could take several hours. Performance varied throughout the day, with some users able to access the service intermittently.
In a post on X, OpenAI said it was seeing “elevated error rates and latency” and had identified the underlying cause. The company added it was “working as fast as possible” to restore normal operations.
The disruption highlights how deeply ChatGPT has become embedded in daily tasks. Data from Glassdoor shows workplace use of the tool has doubled in the past year, while a Pew Research survey found that over a quarter of U.S. teenagers are now using the chatbot for academic help — double the figure from 2023.
The service hiccup sparked lighthearted frustration online. “ChatGPT is down… Which means I actually have to type out my own emails at work. Send prayers,” one user posted.
Tuesday’s incident adds to a growing list of digital tools experiencing performance issues this year, joining other major platforms like Zoom and X in a string of outages affecting productivity across sectors.
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