Unprecedented ChatGPT Disruption Leaves Users Worldwide in the Lurch
If you tried chatting with your favorite AI on June 10, 2025, odds are you hit a brick wall. ChatGPT from OpenAI went completely silent worldwide, slamming the brakes on routines for students, workers, and tech enthusiasts across India, the United States, and the UK. The outage wasn’t just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it inconvenience—it dragged on far longer than regular hiccups with this AI chatbot.
The blackout started gaining traction around 2:45 PM IST (11:15 AM PT). By just after 3:00 PM IST, it was clear the issue was massive. Users across multiple continents saw the same frustrating messages: “Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong” or the more technical “A network error occurred.” People couldn’t get replies, access old chats, or run new queries. And this wasn’t just a handful complaining—Downdetector logged close to 800 reports in India, more than 1,100 in the US, and a whopping 1,450-plus in the UK. Indian users particularly saw 88% of their complaints centered on ChatGPT simply refusing to respond.
This wasn’t just about ChatGPT either. OpenAI’s Sora video generation tool and the GPT API were also gasping for air, struggling under the weight of outage-related “degraded performance.” Developers leaning on OpenAI’s API to run business operations or creative projects suddenly found their services stalling. For many, it was a real reminder of how much the digital world leans on a handful of powerful AI engines.
Response, Repairs, and New Questions About Reliability
OpenAI didn’t take long to notice the storm brewing. By 5:30 AM PT, they reported uncovering the cause behind the chaos and were rolling out fixes. But this time around, flipping the switch back to normal wasn’t so fast. Team OpenAI warned that getting things back on track could take “another few hours.” For a service built around instant answers and always-on access, this delay felt gigantic—especially for those who depend on ChatGPT daily.
As the outage stretched on, many found themselves scrambling for alternatives or simply waiting out a long silence. On June 11, the company finally announced that the GPT API and Sora tool were humming again. ChatGPT itself was almost back, but “almost” meant that for some, odd glitches and loading errors lingered.
The extended downtime sparked real chatter in the tech space. Most previous ChatGPT outages wrapped up within an hour or two. This one stretched into a much longer battle, making people wonder if outages like this are signs of growing pains at OpenAI, or just a fluke technical storm. Either way, the incident highlighted how tightly woven tools like ChatGPT and Sora have become into daily lives—and what can happen when the thread snaps, even for a day.