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On January 23, 2025, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, one of the world’s most popular artificial intelligence tools, experienced a significant global outage. The downtime left millions of users without access, triggering widespread frustration—and a touch of humor—across social media platforms. The incident highlighted both the growing reliance on AI tools and the challenges of maintaining consistent service in a rapidly expanding digital world.
The outage started at about 11:00 GMT as users worldwide reported the same error message: “The web server reported a bad gateway error.” Downdetector, a website which tracks website outages, recorded over 10,000 complaints in the UK alone, with similar spikes in other regions, including the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Spain.
This left the facility unavailable to individuals and businesses who rely on it in day-to-day activities for almost four hours. The problem was first acknowledged by OpenAI on its status page as there was “elevated error rates” affecting the chat service and its API. At 15:09 GMT, it wrote it had applied a fix, although at 16:43 GMT, all services were returned. OpenAI did not say what was behind the outage.
Since it was launched in November 2022, ChatGPT has changed the way people interact with AI. In December 2024, it reported over 300 million weekly active users worldwide. The tool has been used in many industries, from education and customer service to content creation and even therapy. Companies use it to brainstorm ideas, automate processes, and enhance productivity, while students commonly use it for studying and research.
The outage underlined how integral ChatGPT has become to everyday life. For some, it was a temporary irritant. To others, it drove home just how much we’ve grown dependent on such AI tools. Reactions have run deep across social media platforms like X, formerly known as Twitter, from frustration to lighter notes. “ChatGPT is down again?” one user said. “During the workday? So you’re telling me I have to. THINK?!
The quick response by OpenAI to the outage showed its commitment to keeping its services up and running. But the incident also brought into sharp focus the technical challenges that AI companies face. Scaling AI infrastructure to meet the demands of millions of users while ensuring uptime is no small feat. This is particularly critical for a tool like ChatGPT, which processes billions of interactions daily.
The outage comes amid major investment in AI infrastructure. OpenAI, along with other tech giants, recently committed $500 billion to improve the U.S.’s AI capabilities. Such investments are crucial to support the exponential growth of AI tools and meet the challenges that come with such expansion.
As ChatGPT and other AI tools continue to develop, reliability is going to be integral to maintaining user trust and relevance. OpenAI has consistently shown that it is proactive about technical problems, but the global impact of this outage serves to remind of the stakes involved.
AI is no longer a novelty, it’s a given. Events like this turn out to be great lessons for developers and users on how much great infrastructure, transparency, and fluidity are needed in an ever-changing space of artificial intelligence.
