ChatGPT Experiences Global Outage Following Apple Integration

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OpenAI's ChatGPT faced a widespread outage shortly after its integration with Apple's Siri, affecting millions of users worldwide. The company acknowledged the issue and worked to resolve it, while speculation arose about the cause of the disruption.

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ChatGPT Faces Global Outage

OpenAI's popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced a significant global outage on December 12, 2023, affecting its estimated 123 million daily active users

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. The disruption occurred shortly after ChatGPT was integrated into Apple's latest software update, combining it with Siri on iPhones, iPads, and Macs

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Outage Details and Response

OpenAI acknowledged the outage on their official X (formerly Twitter) account, stating, "We're experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix"

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. The company's status page indicated that the ChatGPT API, the chatbot itself, and the newly released Sora AI model were all affected

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Users attempting to access ChatGPT were met with error messages, and some were even logged out of the app

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. Downdetector, a website tracking real-time service interruptions, showed a peak of 1,532 reports over a 15-minute interval

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Apple Integration and Speculation

The outage coincided with Apple's announcement of ChatGPT integration into their Apple Intelligence feature, allowing Siri to utilize ChatGPT for certain requests, including questions about photos and documents

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. This integration is available on most iPhone 15 models and above

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While OpenAI did not confirm whether the outage was directly caused by the Apple integration, some speculated that the influx of iOS users experimenting with the new feature might have contributed to the disruption

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Resolution and Impact

OpenAI worked diligently to resolve the issue, providing regular updates on their status page. By 10:26 pm UTC, the company reported that 99% of the issues had been resolved, with some final checks being conducted

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. A subsequent update at approximately 8 am UAE time (4 am UTC) indicated that API, ChatGPT, and Sora traffic had largely recovered

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Broader Context

This outage follows recent disruptions on other major platforms, including Meta's Instagram and WhatsApp

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. It also marks the third significant outage for ChatGPT in the past three months, with previous incidents occurring on November 8 and December 4, each lasting approximately one and a half hours

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The incident highlights the growing reliance on AI technologies and the potential challenges that arise as these systems become more integrated into everyday applications. As ChatGPT continues to expand its user base and integrate with major tech companies, ensuring robust infrastructure and quick response to outages becomes increasingly critical for OpenAI and its partners.

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