ChatGPT experienced a global outage on Sunday due to an overwhelming surge in demand following the viral popularity of its new Studio Ghibli-style image generation feature. Users reported widespread access issues, prompting OpenAI to acknowledge the problem and restore services.
ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, faced a global outage on Sunday as its servers buckled under an unprecedented surge in demand, triggered by the viral popularity of its new Studio Ghibli-style image generation feature. The disruption left users frustrated, with many unable to access the platform for hours. The outage began on Saturday evening but escalated by Sunday afternoon, with a sharp spike in error reports around 4:19 pm, according to Downdetector. Users encountered messages stating that the platform had reached its rate limit and were unable to generate images or use other ChatGPT features.
OpenAI acknowledged the issue, confirming that “users are experiencing elevated errors” and that engineers were working on a fix. By late Sunday, the company announced that all affected services had been “fully recovered” and assured users that a detailed root cause analysis (RCA) would be released within five business days.
Overwhelming demand for Ghibli-Style images crashes servers
The server overload was primarily driven by OpenAI’s new feature, which allows users to create images inspired by the iconic animation style of Japan’s renowned Studio Ghibli. The tool gained viral traction almost instantly, with users flooding social media with their AI-generated artworks. As the situation escalated, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X (formerly Twitter) to appeal to users, writing: “Can yall please chill on generating images this is insane our team needs sleep.”
OpenAI responds with rate limits
In response to the overwhelming demand, OpenAI has introduced new restrictions on image generation. Free-tier users—who previously had unlimited access—are now limited to three image generations per day. Paid subscribers, including ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and Select users, will continue to have unrestricted access. This move follows a prior announcement from Altman on Thursday, when he revealed that OpenAI had imposed temporary rate limits due to excessive GPU usage, saying that the company’s servers were “melting” under the pressure. He assured users that optimisations were underway, adding, “Hopefully won’t be long.”
Altman defends OpenAI team amid criticism
As frustration mounted, a user on X jokingly suggested that OpenAI should fire the team responsible for the feature. Altman quickly defended them, responding: “No thanks. In addition to building AGI, this team is on trajectory to build the biggest website in the world from a cold start 2.33 years ago. Best team in the world.” He added simply: “It’s just hard.”
Growing popularity raises challenges for OpenAI
The outage highlights the ongoing challenge OpenAI faces in managing the explosive growth of ChatGPT and its expanding capabilities. While the company continues to enhance its infrastructure, incidents like these reflect the immense computational demands required to power large-scale AI models and their increasingly complex features. With demand for AI-generated content at an all-time high, OpenAI’s next steps will be crucial in ensuring the platform remains stable while meeting user expectations.
(With inputs from PTI)
