Is the ChatGPT Outage Still Going On? Here’s the Full Breakdown

2025-06-11

On June 10, 2025, OpenAI’s flagship tool, ChatGPT, experienced a major service disruption that left millions without access to one of the most relied-upon artificial intelligence platforms in the world.

From developers to students, content creators to executives everyone felt the ripple. The outage affected not just the ChatGPT web and mobile apps but also the API and even OpenAI’s newly launched image- and video-generation platform, Sora.

Now, days later, many users are still asking: Is the ChatGPT outage still going on? And what does this mean for the future of AI reliability?

Let’s unpack the event, the response, and the broader implications for OpenAI’s infrastructure and the AI industry at large.

When Did the Outage Begin and What Was Affected?

The first signs of the outage appeared at approximately 2:45 a.m. ET. Users began flooding DownDetector, reporting error messages, failed completions, slow load times, and complete lockouts from both the browser-based and mobile versions of ChatGPT.

By 5:30 a.m. PT, OpenAI publicly acknowledged the disruption on its status page, confirming the issue affected:

ChatGPT Free and Plus users
API customers (including those running GPT-powered applications)
Sora (AI image/video generator)

What’s especially alarming is that both free and paid tiers were equally affected. Whether you were an everyday user or an enterprise developer paying top dollar for API access there was no immunity. Even apps and websites powered quietly in the background by OpenAI’s API began to fail.

Timeline of the ChatGPT Outage

Let’s walk through the chronology:

2:45 a.m. ET: First user reports surface on DownDetector.
Business hours in Europe, UK, and Australia: Outage expands globally.
5:30 a.m. PT: OpenAI confirms the issue and begins internal investigation.
8:00 a.m. PT: Recovery efforts intensify, though engineers warn that it may take longer for full functionality to resume.
11:00 a.m. ET: Some users begin to report that services are returning; however, intermittent issues persist throughout the day.

The duration and scale of the disruption were far beyond a simple reboot scenario. This was a prolonged global outage, and one that OpenAI will not forget any time soon.

Who Was Impacted?

This wasn’t a localized glitch. The issue touched every demographic and use case:

Students using ChatGPT for academic research
Writers and professionals relying on GPT for content generation
Developers whose applications were built on OpenAI’s API
Creative users attempting to generate visuals via Sora
Productivity seekers, now forced to do tasks manually

One X (formerly Twitter) user summed it up:

“ChatGPT is down… Which means I actually have to type out my own emails at work. Send prayers.”

From inconvenience to operational collapse, the outage’s effects were far-reaching—and deeply revealing.

Why Did ChatGPT Go Down?

There are a few key forces at play:

1. Unprecedented User Growth

Recent statistics paint a staggering picture:

Workplace usage of ChatGPT has doubled in just one year, according to Glassdoor.
A Pew Research survey reports that 26 percent of U.S. teens now use the tool for schoolwork—up from just 13 percent in 2023.

As reliance intensifies, even minor performance issues can snowball into large-scale service breakdowns.

2. Overstretched Infrastructure

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman wasn’t joking when he said, “Our GPUs are melting.” This humorous statement underscores a deeper issue: the infrastructure supporting OpenAI’s massively scaled models is struggling to keep up with demand.

3. Strain from New Rollouts

The outage occurred just one day after two major announcements:

Apple’s WWDC 2025 unveiled ChatGPT integration into iPhones and iPads
OpenAI announced it had crossed a 10 billion dollar annual revenue milestone, along with an 80 percent price cut for its powerful “o3” models via API

These moves signaled broader adoption but also meant more pressure on their backend.

Is ChatGPT Back Online Now?

The short answer? Partially, yes.
But the longer answer requires nuance.

Operational Status as of June 11

Many users, especially in the United States, began regaining access by late morning. OpenAI’s systems gradually returned to normal, but performance remained inconsistent depending on:

Time zones
User location
Whether you were accessing ChatGPT, the API, or Sora

Some developers continued facing API errors well into Tuesday evening.

Lingering Performance Issues

Error Rates: Spikes were still visible during peak hours
Slow Generations: Completion times lagged for GPT-4-based tasks
Service Throttling: OpenAI may have limited traffic in waves to manage recovery

OpenAI has been transparent but it’s clear that full stability was not immediate.

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The Bigger Picture: What This Outage Reveals

While outages in tech are not uncommon, this one hit differently. Why?

Because ChatGPT is no longer just another web app. It’s now:

A writing assistant
A coding partner
A homework tool
A business co-pilot

In short: It’s woven into the fabric of daily productivity.

And that creates an uncomfortable reality: centralized AI systems are now single points of failure.

Techi's Take: What Should OpenAI and We Do Next?

This latest blackout is more than a glitch. It’s a cautionary tale, an urgent signal that infrastructure needs to mature at the same pace as AI capabilities.

Scalability, decentralization, and fault tolerance must now be considered core pillars not optional upgrades.

It also forces users, developers, and businesses to reflect:
Are we building too many critical workflows on systems with centralized chokepoints? What happens when they go silent?

Conclusion

OpenAI responded promptly and communicated transparently, which deserves credit. But for a platform that now powers productivity, creativity, and even education on a global scale, reliability is no longer negotiable, it’s imperative.

As the company celebrates growth milestones and deeper integrations with tech giants, it must also prioritize resilience. The next generation of AI won’t just be judged on intelligence—it will be judged on uptime.

For now, ChatGPT is mostly back. But the industry has been warned: the future of AI isn’t just smarter models, it’s stronger systems.

FAQ

Q: What caused the ChatGPT outage on June 10?
A: The disruption was likely caused by a combination of surging global traffic, infrastructure strain, and increased backend demands following major product rollouts and announcements.

Q: Is ChatGPT fully back online now?
A: Mostly, yes. While core functionalities have returned for most users, some regions and API developers may still experience sporadic issues.

Q: Was the outage global?
A: Yes. Users across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia were affected. Both free and paid tiers, as well as OpenAI’s API and Sora platform, experienced downtime.

Q: How can users stay informed about future outages?
A: Monitor OpenAI’s Status Page, follow OpenAI's official X account, and stay tuned to Bitrue for critical AI infrastructure updates and investment analysis.

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