OpenAI apologises for ChatGPT outage affecting 200 million users
OpenAI has apologised to its 200 million active users following a global outage of ChatGPT that occurred around 11:07 PM UTC on December 11.
The outage coincided with the integration of ChatGPT into Apple’s latest software update for Siri, but OpenAI has not confirmed if the two events are directly related.
“We’re experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix,” OpenAI stated in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on December 12.
By the time of publication, ChatGPT had started coming back online in regions like Australia.
Users attempting to access ChatGPT’s API encountered messages indicating that “ChatGPT is currently unavailable” and that the company was actively addressing the issue.
The outage also affected OpenAI's video generation model, Sora, which experienced similar disruptions.
According to OpenAI, traffic for both ChatGPT and Sora had “largely recovered” by 3:53 AM UTC on December 12.
Reports of the network failure peaked at 1,532 within a 15-minute window shortly after the initial outage was reported.
This incident marks at least the fourth network outage for ChatGPT since June, with previous issues occurring in June and August.
The timing of this outage is particularly notable as it coincides with Apple’s announcement that Siri would now utilise ChatGPT to enhance its capabilities, including answering questions about photos and documents.
Apple users with iPhone 15 models and newer can now access these features, which integrate visual intelligence with ChatGPT.
In a related note, Meta also faced technical difficulties on December 11, affecting users of Facebook and Instagram.
Meta reported resolving “99% of the issues” a few hours later as they finalised checks.
As OpenAI works to stabilise its services, users are encouraged to remain patient during this recovery period.
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