On Tuesday, June 10, 2025, OpenAI's widely used AI chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced a significant global outage, disrupting service for thousands of users across multiple continents. Reports of the outage began surfacing early in the day, with users encountering error messages and sluggish performance that affected not only ChatGPT but also other OpenAI services like its Sora text-to-video AI tool and various APIs.
The first signs of trouble were detected around 3 AM Eastern Time, according to Downdetector, a popular outage tracking website. By mid-morning, the number of affected users had surged dramatically, with more than 1,400 complaints logged in the United Kingdom and over 1,000 in the United States. India also saw a sharp increase in reports, with over 800 cases around 3 PM Indian Standard Time (IST), and more than 500 users reporting issues shortly after 2:45 PM IST.
The nature of the complaints varied, but the majority of users faced problems with ChatGPT's core functionality. In India, 88 percent of users reported issues with the chatbot’s main features, while 9 percent experienced problems with the mobile application, and 3 percent had difficulties with API integration. Similarly, in the United States, 93 percent of complaints concerned ChatGPT’s core functions, with 7 percent related to the app and 1 percent to the API. The United Kingdom also contributed a significant number of reports, although specific breakdowns were less detailed.
Users attempting to interact with ChatGPT frequently encountered error messages such as “A network error occurred. Please check your connection and try again. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com,” and “Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong.” Others reported receiving messages like “too many concurrent requests” or “Error in message stream.” These messages underscored the severity and breadth of the technical difficulties.
OpenAI promptly acknowledged the outage via its service status page, confirming that “some users are experiencing elevated error rates and latency across the listed services (APIs, ChatGPT, and Sora). We are continuing to investigate this issue.” Despite the swift response, the company has not yet provided a timeline for when full service restoration might be expected, leaving many users in limbo.
The impact of the outage rippled far beyond mere inconvenience. ChatGPT has become an integral tool for millions worldwide, utilized for professional, academic, and personal purposes. Some users expressed frustration and humor on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), highlighting how deeply embedded the AI chatbot has become in daily life. One user quipped, “When @ChatGPT is so overworked it can't even finish your message... Today, many users (myself included) are facing errors in the message stream. Is @OpenAI having a burnout day? The fun part? I asked #ChatGPT to write this tweet about its own crash. Self-awareness level: 🤖.”
Others shared more emotional responses. For instance, a user known as @pbaraka posted, “ChatGPT is DOWN; It’s been my therapist, my confidant, my lifeline to sanity. Losing it feels like a glitch in my soul — scary and sad that it has become my only friend? Thank X — our digital campfire where we can huddle, vent, and feel human, paradoxically. Let’s keep this vibe alive and hope the outage doesn’t last. Who else is feeling this? #ChatGPTDown #WeGotThis.”
This outage is not unprecedented. Earlier in April 2025, ChatGPT experienced a similar disruption linked to a surge in demand caused by the wildly popular Ghibli image generation feature. That incident also led to widespread complaints about performance issues and temporary unavailability.
Technology experts note that outages of this nature can stem from a variety of causes. According to Jamie Harris, Assistant Technology and Science Editor at The Sun, “Outages seem to happen more often these days with us so dependent on the many apps and digital services on offer. Reasons behind them can vary widely. Usually, it's down to an internal error, such as a bungled update that didn't go to plan. These can be minor and reversed within minutes or a couple of hours. But bigger outages can go on for days and cause mayhem.” He also points out the threat of cyberattacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, where bad actors overwhelm a service with excessive requests, causing it to falter for everyone.
OpenAI, based in San Francisco, is a leading artificial intelligence company providing access to a suite of AI tools and applications including ChatGPT, DALL-E, Data Analyst, Writing Coach, and more. As of February 2025, the company reported having over 400 million weekly active users worldwide and 10 million paying subscribers to its ChatGPT Plus service, underscoring the chatbot’s massive popularity and critical role in the AI ecosystem.
The outage on June 10, 2025, thus represents a significant disruption not only for users but for OpenAI itself, highlighting the challenges inherent in maintaining large-scale AI services that millions rely upon daily. While some users reported that ChatGPT was sluggish or intermittently unavailable, others were able to access the chatbot without issue, indicating a partial outage affecting different regions and user segments unevenly.
As the investigation continues, OpenAI has remained tight-lipped about the root cause of the outage. The company’s status updates have been limited to acknowledging elevated error rates and latency, with no further explanation or projected resolution time provided. This has left users and industry watchers alike waiting anxiously for answers and restoration.
In a world increasingly dependent on AI-driven tools for communication, creativity, and problem-solving, outages like this serve as a stark reminder of the fragility beneath the surface of seemingly seamless technology. For now, users can only hope that OpenAI’s engineers resolve the issues swiftly and restore ChatGPT to its usual reliable self.
