ChatGPT not working for you? You’re not the only one

Those of you who’ve tried to use ChatGPT over the past several hours may have noticed that the AI isn’t its usual chatty, responsive self. It’s not just you. The service seems to be down for a lot of people.

Also: The best AI for coding in 2025 (and what not to use)

Fire up ChatGPT and submit any request at the prompt. In return, the AI will tell you that there’s an error in the message stream or that something seems to have gone wrong. The trouble is the same whether you use the ChatGPT website, the Windows or Mac app, or the iOS or Android app.

The outage started at 3 a.m. ET

Based on data sent by users to ChatGPT went down at 3 am. The cause was Downdetector (19459043). ET peaked at 5:30 a.m., when the number of reports surpassed 1,000. The number of reports has decreased since then, but the problem continues. Downdetector, which is also owned Ziff Davis’ parent company ZDNET, is also a Ziff Davis company.

On its OpenAI’s own status pageshows that the service currently has issues. One status update indicates that ChatGPT, Sora text to video platform, and APIs have experienced high error rates and latency over the last several hours. Another update, which is more recent, focuses on Sora and again indicates elevated error rates.

OpenAI announced at 9:07 am that they had identified the cause of the problem and were working to fix it. As of 10:54 am, the company reported that it was still working on the fix. It also said that some APIs were recovering. OpenAI said that it could take a few more hours for the company to fully recover across all of its services, which include ChatGPT and Sora.

At 2 p.m. OpenAI reported, 11 hours after the original outage, that it was still working on the fix.

And:Does ChatGPT Plus remain worth $20, when the free version offers so many premium features.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis (parent company of ZDNET) filed a lawsuit in April 2025 against OpenAI alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights when training and operating their AI systems.

Alternatives you can try

What do you need in the meantime if you want a dose generative AI but ChatGPT is not your app of choice? There are a few dozen other apps to try.

Also, the best AI chatbots for 2025: ChatGPT and Copilot: and notable alternatives

My favorites are Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. Gemini is my go-to for general questions and requests. Copilot is my go-to voice program when I want to have an informative and interesting conversation. Both Gemini and Copilot are available in both free and paid versions. However, the free versions should be able handle any challenge that you throw at it.

Receive the morning’s most important stories each day in your inbox with ourTech Today Newsletter