ChatGPT was down — updates on quick outage

How many people are affected?

ChatGPT's current outage is undoubtedly affecting thousands of users worldwide, and it could spread further as more people start reporting an outage.

The chatbot is available to use for free, but OpenAI charges up to for access to its more advanced features. While free users will no doubt be upset, it's the ones paying for access to ChatGP,T and it's wealth of features will undoubtedly be angrier.

According to OpenAI boss Sam Altman, ChatGPT is used weekly by more than 300 million people worldwide.

Charting the outage

As you can see from the DownDetector graph pictured above, reports spiked early and reached nearly 1,600 reports before falling back down again to around 1,400. It's been up and down, but there's no doubt something is off with ChatGPT.

DownDetector relies on user-generated reports of outages and typically sees strong spikes right into an outage as devoted users of any service provide their reports.

Many reporters cite that ChatGPT isn't working, regardless of platform, though mobile seems to be the more significant issue, as that's where I could not connect.

Issue identified... sort of

On OpenAI's status page, the company said it has identified something, though its wording isn't exactly clear.

"We have identified that users are experiencing elevated errors for the impacted services," reads the page.

Yes, we're all aware that users are "experiencing elevated errors," but it isn't clear if the company knows why those errors are happening. It does continue by saying "We are working on implementing a mitigation."

ChatGPT thinks ChatGPT is back

I managed to get ChatGPT to load on my phone and asked it if it was okay. It responded by saying, "I'm all good—no outages on my end!"

If that's the case, then we're happy everyone's favorite chatbot is back in order, but the OpenAI status page says it's "currently experiencing issues," so I don't know who to believe.

Downdetector reports are low

The reports on Downdetector have dropped closer to their baseline. Currently sitting at 175, the reports were as high as 1,600 earlier today. If this pattern keeps up, this might be a very short outage for ChatGPT, which is excellent news for people who rely on it for their daily workflows.

As always, we'll continue to bring you the latest news on the outage as it develops, including letting you know as soon as OpenAI confirms things are fixed.

Best ChatGPT alternatives

If ChatGPT isn't fully working for you yet, you may wonder what to use instead.

Luckily, we have a list here of the best ChatGPT alternatives. Give it a read and get the answers you seek from alternative chatbots (none of which are showing as down on Downdetector, so you should be good to go).

Fully operational

OpenAI's status page has officially declared the service to be fully operational. That means everything should be back to normal, and you should be able to use ChatGPT without any issues.

We'll keep a close eye on the service in case anything changes, but as of right now, it's safe to say this outage is over.