OpenAI is actively addressing a significant outage that impacted its applications, most notably ChatGPT. The disruption began around 2 p.m. ET on Thursday when high error rates were detected, leading the company to launch an investigation into the matter.
In a public message shared on the social media platform X shortly after 4 p.m. ET, OpenAI confirmed that many of its services, including ChatGPT and the API, were down due to issues with an upstream provider—a company responsible for connecting local internet service networks to the broader internet.
As the situation unfolded, OpenAI provided updates at 3 p.m. and again at 4 p.m., assuring users that they were diligently working to resolve the issue. By 6:30 p.m., there was progress, with ChatGPT and the APIs experiencing partial recovery, while Sora was reported to be fully operational.
OpenAI extended its apologies for the inconvenience caused to users who rely on these services for research and academic or work-related tasks. The company expressed hope for a complete return to normal functionality soon.
The resilience and commitment OpenAI has shown in tackling this technical challenge reflect the dedication to improving user experience and maintaining trust. As they resolve these issues, users can be hopeful for more robust infrastructure and continued enhancements to the reliability of AI applications in the future.
To summarize, OpenAI experienced outages impacting services like ChatGPT due to an upstream provider issue, but the company is on track to fix these problems and restore full functionality shortly.