In case you were working with ChatGPT today, you may have noticed that the OpenAI platform went down. In what appeared to be a mass outage, users of the artificial intelligence tool complained that they were unable to use it. Many reported that after giving the platform a prompt, ChatGPT didn't load an answer. So, what is the reason behind the outage?
At 11:00 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET on December 26, OpenAI acknowledged the widespread issue on its status website. The announcement read, "We are currently experiencing an issue with high error rates on ChatGPT, the API and Sora. We are currently investigating and will post an update as soon as we are able."
Find out the reason behind ChatGPT's mass outage, below.
At the time of publication, ChatGPT was still down for many users. According to Down Detector, more than 15,000 people reported the outage at about 2:00 p.m. ET. By 3:00 p.m., about 3,900 people had reported problems to Down Detector.
At 11:18 a.m. PT/2:18 p.m. ET, OpenAI confirmed the reason for its outage. "This issue is caused by an upstream provider, and we are currently monitoring," the platform noted.
According to multiple outlets, ChatGPT and other OpenAI platforms experienced several outages throughout 2024. In June, ChatGPT went down for users around the world.