Major Outage Hits ChatGPT and Claude: OpenAI Services Experience Widespread Disruption
OpenAI's AI service ChatGPT experienced a widespread outage on February 3, 2026, with over 10,000 users reporting issues according to Down Detector data. Similar problems were observed on the same day with Anthropic's Claude service, highlighting the growing dependence on AI assistants and the impact of potential disruptions.
Widespread Access Crisis Hits AI Giants
Leading AI services, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, faced simultaneous and widespread outages on February 3, 2026. Users experienced significant problems accessing the platforms, with thousands of complaints reported worldwide. This incident once again highlighted the growing dependence on AI assistants, which have become central to daily life and business processes, and the potential impact of possible disruptions.
Scale of the Outage and User Reactions
According to data from the outage monitoring platform Down Detector, over 10,000 users reported access issues for ChatGPT alone. Users encountered problems such as inability to connect to the web interface and mobile app, receiving error messages when asking questions, or responses arriving very slowly. It was reported that the issues affected all of ChatGPT's features. Similar complaints came in during the same time period for another popular AI assistant, Claude. This simultaneous technical failure experienced by two major platforms created significant reverberations across the industry.
In a statement following the outage, OpenAI announced that performance degradation and high error rates were detected in 13 different system components. It was stated that teams immediately began working to resolve the issue. However, a detailed explanation regarding the exact technical cause of the outage was not shared in the initial phase. This situation led to user speculation and concerns on social media.
Potential Causes and Industry Impacts
Technical experts note that such widespread outages are usually caused by sudden increases in server load, unexpected problems arising from infrastructure updates, or cybersecurity incidents. The fact that two competing platforms were affected simultaneously also raised the possibility of an external factor or a common issue originating from cloud infrastructure providers. The outage, affecting millions of active users, demonstrated how deeply integrated AI tools have become in professional workflows and daily routines. This event is expected to accelerate discussions on service redundancy, backup systems, and the resilience of critical AI infrastructure.
