ChatGPT back online after outage which hit thousands worldwide

ChatGPT is working again after an outage saw the world's best-known artificial intelligence (AI) tool taken offline.

Downdetector, which tracks website outages, showed more than 10,000 people reported the AI chatbot, which is made by OpenAI, was not working in the UK on Thursday.

Users attempting to access it were met with a message reading "the web server reported a bad gateway error".

OpenAI said on its status page a fix was implemented at 15:09 GMT, and the firm was "monitoring the results".

It has not yet publicly commented on the cause of the outage, which began at around 11:00 GMT on Thursday.

However, many people took to social media to highlight the problem and the disruption it caused them.

Some of those posting on X about the outage were able to see the funny side of the situation, however.

"ChatGPT is down again? During the work day? So you're telling me I have to… THINK?!", joked one user.

ChatGPT's status page said at the time the app had been "experiencing elevated error rates" and the firm was "investigating".

Since it exploded onto the scene in November 2022, ChatGPT sparked enormous global interest - and investment - in generative AI tools.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman said that, by December 2024, ChatGPT was used weekly by more than 300 million people worldwide.

Though many people use the free version of the chatbot, the firm charges up to $200 per month for its various membership tiers.

It comes after tech firms including OpenAI pledged a $500bn (£405bn) investment into AI infrastructure in the US.