ChatGPT Experiencing Errors for Paid Users: OpenAI Confirms and Works on Fix

If you’re encountering issues with ChatGPT this morning, you’re not alone. Just after 8:30 a.m. ET, reports started flooding in from paid users experiencing errors while trying to interact with the chatbot. Some users received error messages, while others found that the chatbot did not respond at all. DownDetector, an outage-tracking website owned by Ziff Davis, the parent company of ZDNet, reported a spike in issues around the same time. By 9:45 a.m. ET, the number of reports had decreased but the problems were still ongoing. OpenAI confirmed the issue on its status page, noting “elevated errors on ChatGPT for all paid users.” The company stated that it was actively working on mitigating the problem. As of this writing, the issues have persisted for about 90 minutes, with the “Conversations” feature experiencing the highest error rates. Interestingly, the problems are only affecting paid users. This could be linked to the recent rollout of ChatGPT Agent, a feature that allows users to handle complex tasks such as scheduling appointments or updating spreadsheets. This feature was made available to Pro subscribers for $200 a month last week, and to Plus users for $20 a month this morning. The increased use of this new feature might be placing additional strain on the system. Last month, ChatGPT faced a 15-hour outage, though the current issue appears less severe. OpenAI’s other services, including Playground, Sora, and APIs, were not impacted. Given that the company is aware of the error and is actively addressing it, users should expect the issues to be resolved soon. For more news and insights into the world of AI, sign up for our weekly newsletter, Innovation.