Millions of ChatGPT users around the world—including right here in Thailand—were hit with sudden disruptions today as OpenAI’s flagship AI tool suffered a major global outage, bringing both casual conversations and critical workflows to a halt.
According to The Verge and Tom’s Guide, the outage began in the early hours of Tuesday (Bangkok time), with users across the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Southeast Asia reporting error messages and connectivity issues when trying to access ChatGPT. The affected services include ChatGPT’s web and mobile platforms, OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora, and its developer-facing API services.
Coincidentally, this image was created by ChatGPT Photo Courtesy ZOSMA
By mid-morning, the platform had racked up thousands of complaints on Downdetector, with frustrated users seeing vague error messages like “Hmm… something seems to have gone wrong” or “A network error occurred.”
In Thailand, the disruption became noticeable around lunchtime, especially among students, digital freelancers, and educators who rely on ChatGPT for academic writing, lesson planning, content creation, and translation tasks.
“Many of us rely on ChatGPT for language support and brainstorming,” said a international school teacher in Bangkok (who preferred not to be named). “When it suddenly stopped working mid-lesson, it created a lot of confusion. It’s become a tool we instinctively reach for.”
OpenAI Responds, Offers Few Details
OpenAI acknowledged the issue through its official system status page, stating that they were dealing with a “partial outage” and experiencing “elevated error rates and increased latency.” The company confirmed it had identified the root cause and was working to implement a fix as quickly as possible. No specific timeline for full restoration was provided at the time of reporting.
Sora, OpenAI’s new AI-powered video tool, was also listed among the affected services, adding to concerns among creative professionals who had recently integrated the tool into their video editing workflows.
Not Just a Glitch — A Wake-Up Call
While outages are not uncommon in the tech world, today’s disruption highlights a growing dependency on AI platforms like ChatGPT for everyday tasks—from business communication and customer service to mental health support and schoolwork.
“We’ve become so reliant on AI that when it goes down, entire lesson plans and workflows are disrupted,” the teacher added.
The outage also prompted many to explore alternatives such as Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok, and Perplexity AI, all of which reportedly remained operational during the blackout. Some users even joked on X (formerly Twitter) that it felt like being “cut off from a best friend mid-sentence.”
This global incident shines a light on the risks of over-reliance on centralized AI systems without contingency plans. It also presents an opening for rival platforms to win over disillusioned users.
As of now, OpenAI says systems are gradually stabilizing, but full functionality has not been officially declared. Users in Thailand are advised to keep an eye on the OpenAI system status page for live updates.
