ChatGPT was down — live updates on chatbot outage affecting the UK right now

The reports start

The reports have started pouring in, jumping to close to 3,000 on Down Detector in the UK.

We'll have to wait and see if this outage continues to spike or if it's just a passing blip, but we'll keep an eye on it so you can determine whether ChatGPT will be back in a few moments or down for an extended period.

Posts have been coming through on X for the past hour or so, with users reporting that ChatGPT has either slowed right down or is just not working at all.

While it isn't clear if they are related, some users are also reporting that ChatGPT Atlas, the company's new AI internet browser, is also running slower than usual.

ChatGPT slowed right down for you midway through a task? The good news is that there are plenty of alternative chatbots that can step in until ChatGPT recovers.

Some of our favorite ChatGPT alternatives here at Tom's Guide include:

Anthropic Claude:
When it comes to working on research, coding, or any kind of task that carries an important feel to it, Claude is always a strong option. It is straight-to-the-point, detailed, and well-trained. In fact, right now it sits at the top of our guide to the best ChatGPT alternatives.

- Try out Claude

Gemini:
Like Claude, Gemini is a strong competitor to ChatGPT. In many ways, it is the closest you'll see to ChatGPT, offering everything from deep research to image and video generation. It often scores at a similar level to ChatGPT in tests and has a similar style of response.

- Try out Gemini

Perplexity:
Perplexity is hyper-focused in what it offers. If you were using ChatGPT to answer quick questions or find out more about a particular topic, Perplexity can do the task perfectly.

However, it lacks a lot of the extra features you'd see from something like ChatGPT or Gemini. In other words, there is no image or video generation, and it will struggle with hitting some of the more creative or fun notes you find with other chatbots.

- Try out Perplexity

Where better to find out information than from ChatGPT itself? I asked the chatbot if it was experiencing any delays. It then told me "Yes"... before telling me there were no known issues affecting ChatGPT.

Following that, ChatGPT then typed out a longer message at a pace that would make a snail seem impressive.

UK-based members of the Tom's Guide team continue to report similar results, with the chatbot acting incredibly slowly.

According to the OpenAI Status page, the issue is affecting "conversations". The team is investigating the issue, so all being well, it should be sorted soon.

The issue was originally identified by the team at 16:09pm BST. It was then investigated, and work began at 16:39 BST.

They have identified the problem as 'degraded performance', which is another way of simply saying things are running slower than intended.

While the likes of Gemini and Claude seem to be fine, others are reporting similar issues with Grok AI being down or slow for them.

The spike doesn't seem to be quite as high, and it isn't clear if they are being caused by the same issues.

On Grok's own status page, it reported about an hour ago that it was slow to respond. According to xAI, this problem has now been resolved.

Grok is owned by xAI, the same company behind Elon Musk's X. It is one of OpenAI's big competitors, often competing with them in areas such as AI coding, image generation and more.

OpenAI's status page has seen an update, stating, "Error rates are starting to reduce. We are investigating the issue for the listed services." This update came through at 5:04 pm BST.

This was then followed by an update six minutes later stating "We have applied the mitigation and are monitoring the recovery".

In theory, this should mean that ChatGPT is now on its way back to working at full speed.

Having just tested the chatbot, it was back to its full speed for me, even seeming a little bit faster than normal (overdoing it there a bit).

DownDetector is now showing a sharp drop in the number of outage reports on ChatGPT, suggesting that things are returning to normal for most accounts.

There are no more updates from OpenAI at this point, but it seems like the problem has been fixed and is rolling out. If you are still finding that the chatbot is being slower than normal for you, come back to it soon, and it should be back to its normal self.

It isn't clear what caused the delay, but this wasn't the first time ChatGPT went down. In fact, the chatbot does have an outage like this every couple of months. With so many users and such a complicated tool to run, these problems can sometimes occur.

If you want to know more about AI, or see what alternative chatbots you can use in the future if this happens again, check out Tom's Guide's AI coverage.

OpenAI has now given the all clear! The company is reporting to be fully operational with no issues affecting its system right now.

The same can be seen on DownDetector as the number seems to have dropped back down to completely normal levels.