The popular AI ChatGPT experienced a huge outage in the United States on Tuesday, interrupting service for thousands of users. Over 12,000 users reported issues with ChatGPT around 3:25 PM ET, according to Downdetector.com. Check below what caused the ChatGPT outage.
What caused the ChatGPT Outage
Reports say the issues began around 3 PM ET, with users experiencing “elevated error rates.” Some users faced issues with message generation, connection errors, and accessing the platform. OpenAI’s official status page also confirmed two issues:
OpenAI stated that they had identified the problem and were working on mitigation. The company assured users that they were working to restore service as quickly as possible.
Downdetector data showed that most of the reports came from the US, although some global reports were also received. At its peak, over 12,000 incidents were reported, significantly higher than usual. While some reports showed improvement by the evening, full service restoration had not yet been confirmed.
This outage happens while OpenAI is developing new models, like GPT-5.2, and phasing out older ones. This might cause some technical issues in the backend.
CharGPT confirmed that the outage impacted almost all ChatGPT features. This includes conversations, search, image generation, Codex, Atlas, and other services. Although ChatGPT is a relatively new service, it has become essential in many people’s lives.
