Global ChatGPT Outage Disrupts Users in India and UAE
OpenAI's status page noted 'elevated error rates on ChatGPT record mode, Sora and Codex,' and the company confirmed its engineers were actively working on mitigation measures. The widespread impact began just after 6:10 am IST, affecting users across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Users faced blank interfaces, verification loops, and failure to load previous conversations. Some were unable even to initiate new sessions. OpenAI offered guidance to users striving to navigate the disruption, but withheld a timeline or root cause.
ADVERTISEMENT
The company did not identify a specific trigger, but Downdetector data shows this marks the second significant outage this month — the first occurred on 10 June and a major one emerged earlier this month. This recurring instability has raised concerns about OpenAI's infrastructure resilience, especially as AI tools become integral to education, business, coding and creative processes.
In the UAE and India, users began logging issues around 5 am. Chat histories failed to load and sessions stalled, exacerbating frustrations among professional and casual users alike. According to Downdetector, 82 per cent of reports were tied to ChatGPT access issues, 12 per cent to website availability, and 6 per cent to mobile app failures.
On social media platforms like X, users shared screenshots and vented frustrations. Common complaints included error loops and service unavailability, sparking concerns within developer and content-creator communities that rely on OpenAI's tools in real time.
OpenAI subsequently issued a statement confirming that services had been fully restored by about 7 am local time in affected regions, and reassured users that full functionality was reinstated. However, the company offered little explanation regarding the failure's origins.
Analysts note that as AI systems like ChatGPT become embedded in daily workflows—from drafting documents to coding support—even brief outages can have outsize repercussions. The frequency of these outages this month has drawn scrutiny, prompting calls for OpenAI to bolster system capacity and redundancy.
Enterprise clients dependent on GPT-powered tools for generating content, automating customer support responses, or powering educational platforms may face operational setbacks. In response, OpenAI told users it is implementing mitigation strategies to prevent repeats of such disruptions.
Market watchers will track whether these outages trigger enterprise clients to reassess vendor risk, potentially exploring multi‑vendor AI strategies or hosting localised AI solutions with stronger reliability guarantees.
Despite the disruption, by mid-morning on Wednesday ChatGPT and affiliated services were reported as fully operational. Yet, as AI becomes a mission‑critical component of digital ecosystems, the pressure to ensure consistent performance has surged dramatically.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Campaign ME
3 days ago
- Campaign ME
Why marketers must now add GEO to the equation
I have followed the evolution of AI with genuine interest. Not for the buzz, but for the way it continues to reshape the world around us, especially the way business operates and how our industry communicates. One of the most significant shifts we are seeing today is in how people search. According to proprietary data from the Synthesio UAE team at Ipsos, 35 percent of the global population is already using large language model (LLM) applications, and nearly half of that usage is for search. Publicly available data confirms that ChatGPT on its own has now surpassed 500 million weekly active users and is growing steadily, with over 2.5 billion prompts processed each day. This rapid pace of adoption suggests that generative platforms will play an increasingly important role in how people are changing the way they search, discover, and evaluate information. For more than two decades, SEO has shaped the way brands build digital visibility. The playbook is clear: conduct keyword research, optimise on-page elements, build authoritative backlinks, and improve domain relevance to rank higher in search results. Success is measured by position on the page and traffic to the site. The higher a brand ranked, the greater its chances of being chosen. That model is no longer complete. User behaviour has shifted. People are now turning to generative platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Instead of browsing a list of links, they type a question and expect a complete answer. They do not always need to click through or explore multiple sources. The answer they see is the one they trust. 'Generative platforms are trained on a wide range of sources. They look for well-written, credible, and clearly structured content. Brands that publish this kind of material across authoritative platforms are more likely to be cited in generated answers.' This change has introduced a new layer of digital visibility. Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is evolving alongside SEO. It builds on the same foundation but adapts it to the way people now seek answers in generative platforms. Traditional search is still essential, particularly for transactional queries. GEO adds another dimension. It focuses on whether a brand is included in the answers produced by generative engines. This shift is already influencing content strategies across the world and in our region. In industries such as travel and financial services, brands are moving away from volume-driven content. They are producing material that is structured, specific, and designed to address real questions. The goal is no longer to dominate every search term. The focus is to become part of the conversation that generative engines are assembling in response to those questions. What makes GEO different is the way it relies on reputation and clarity. Generative platforms are trained on a wide range of sources. They look for well-written, credible, and clearly structured content. Brands that publish this kind of material across authoritative platforms are more likely to be cited in generated answers. This creates new responsibilities for several functions. 'For full-service agencies, this shift presents an opportunity. GEO blurs the lines between traditional silos. It calls for integrated thinking across creative, PR, content, SEO and digital media.' PR is one area where the shift is already being felt. Press releases, executive interviews, and opinion pieces are no longer limited to influencing journalists or readers. These assets are now becoming inputs into what AI systems learn and repeat. PR professionals have a role to play in building discoverability, not just perception. Content marketers are also adjusting their approach. The focus is no longer just on publishing frequently; it is on publishing meaningfully. Generative systems give more weight to content that explains, informs, and reflects a consistent point of view. Performance headlines and surface-level articles are losing ground to substance. SEO specialists are expanding their toolkits. Technical accuracy still matters, but now it serves a broader purpose. Clear structures, internal consistency, and well-defined markup increase the likelihood that AI models will absorb content. These same elements that once helped with Google rankings now support generative visibility. For full-service agencies, this shift presents an opportunity. GEO blurs the lines between traditional silos. It calls for integrated thinking across creative, PR, content, SEO and digital media. Agencies that can bring these disciplines together under one strategy will be better positioned to guide brands through this transition. Visibility is no longer the responsibility of a single team. It depends on how well the entire ecosystem works together. Generative Engine Optimisation reflects how search is evolving. The mechanics are changing. So is the definition of visibility. A high ranking used to be enough. Today, the brand also needs to appear in the answer itself. The most forward-thinking marketers are already preparing for this. They are not discarding what works. They are expanding their strategy to include the platforms that are shaping the next chapter of discovery. By Ghassan Kassabji, CEO – Dubai and Chief Growth Officer – MENA, Impact BBDO
Zawya
3 days ago
- Zawya
CEO Tim Cook says Apple ready to open its wallet to catch up in AI
SAN FRANCISCO: Apple CEO Tim Cook signaled on Thursday the iPhone maker was ready to spend more to catch up to rivals in artificial intelligence by building more data centers or buying a larger player in the segment, a departure from a long practice of fiscal frugality. Apple has struggled to keep pace with rivals such as Microsoft and Alphabet's Google, both of which have attracted hundreds of millions of users to their AI-powered chatbots and assistants. That growth has come at a steep cost, however, with Google planning to spend $85 billion over the next year and Microsoft on track to spend more than $100 billion, mostly on data centers. Apple, in contrast, has leaned on outside data center providers to handle some of its cloud computing work, and despite a high-profile partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI for certain iPhone features, has tried to grow much of its AI technology in-house, including improvements to its Siri virtual assistant. The results have been rocky, with the company delaying its Siri improvements until next year. During a conference call after Apple's fiscal third-quarter results, analysts noted that Apple has historically not done large deals and asked whether it might take a different approach to pursue its AI ambitions. CEO Cook responded that the company had already acquired seven smaller companies this year and is open to buying larger ones. "We're very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap. We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature," Cook said. "We basically ask ourselves whether a company can help us accelerate a roadmap, and if they do, then we're interested." Apple has tended to buy smaller firms with highly specialized technical teams to build out specific products. Its largest deal ever was its purchase of Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014, followed by a $1 billion deal to buy a modem chip business from Intel. But now Apple is at a unique crossroads for its business. The tens of billions of dollars per year it receives from Google as payment to be the default search engine on iPhones could be undone by U.S. courts in Google's antitrust trial, while startups like Perplexity are in discussions with handset makers to try to dislodge Google with an AI-powered browser that would handle many search functions. Apple executives have said in court they are considering reshaping the firm's Safari browser with AI-powered search functions, and Bloomberg News has reported that Apple executives have discussed buying Perplexity, which Reuters has not independently confirmed. Apple also said on Thursday it plans to spend more on data centers, an area where it typically spends only a few billion dollars per year. Apple is currently using its own chip designs to handle AI requests with privacy controls that are compatible with the privacy features on its devices. Kevan Parekh, Apple's chief financial officer, did not give specific spending targets but said outlays would rise. "It's not going to be exponential growth, but it is going to grow substantially," Parekh said during the conference call.
Zawya
4 days ago
- Zawya
Microsoft races past $4trln valuation after solid results
Microsoft soared past $4 trillion in market valuation on Thursday, becoming the second publicly traded company after Nvidia to surpass the milestone following a blockbuster earnings report. The technology behemoth forecast a record $30 billion in capital spending for the first quarter of the current fiscal year to meet soaring AI demand and reported booming sales in its Azure cloud computing business on Wednesday. Shares of Microsoft were up 6.6% at $546.33 in morning trading. "It is in the process of becoming more of a cloud infrastructure business and a leader in enterprise AI, doing so very profitably and cash generatively despite the heavy AI capital expenditures," said Gerrit Smit, lead portfolio manager, Stonehage Fleming Global Best Ideas Equity Fund. Redmond, Washington-headquartered Microsoft first cracked the $1-trillion mark in April 2019. Its move to $3 trillion was more measured than technology giants Nvidia and Apple, with AI-bellwether Nvidia tripling its value in just about a year and clinching the $4-trillion milestone before any other company on July 9. Apple was last valued at $3.11 trillion. Lately, breakthroughs in trade talks between the United States and its trading partners ahead of President Donald Trump's August 1 tariff deadline have buoyed stocks, propelling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record highs. Microsoft's multibillion-dollar bet on OpenAI is proving to be a game changer, powering its Office Suite and Azure offerings with cutting-edge AI and fueling the stock to more than double its value since ChatGPT's late-2022 debut. Its capital expenditure forecast, its largest ever for a single quarter, has put it on track to potentially outspend its rivals over the next year. Meta Platforms also doubled down on its AI ambitions, forecasting third-quarter revenue that blew past Wall Street estimates as artificial intelligence supercharged its core advertising business. The social media giant upped the lower end of its annual capital spending by $2 billion - just days after Alphabet made a similar move - signaling that Silicon Valley's race to dominate the artificial-intelligence frontier is only accelerating. - the largest U.S. cloud provider - which will report earnings on Thursday after markets close, rose 1.7%. Wall Street's surging confidence in the company comes on the heels of back-to-back record revenues for the tech giant since September 2022. The stock's rally had also received an extra boost as the tech giant trimmed its workforce and doubled down on AI investments — determined to cement its lead as businesses race to harness the technology. While sweeping U.S. tariffs had investors bracing for tighter business spending, Microsoft's strong earnings have shown that the company's books are yet to take a hit from the levies. (Reporting by Medha Singh and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
