Major AI platforms go down in global outage as internet suffers wipeout

OpenAI has suggested that it is 'investigating' the issue

General Apr 20, 2026 0 2 Add to Reading List

Major AI platforms go down in global outage as internet suffers wipeout

ChatGPT and other AI platforms have gone down across the globe leaving millions of people potentially affected.

The OpenAI status page says that it's investigating an issue with 'users unable to load ChatGPT and Codex'.

According to the website Downdetector, which reports real-time service problems and outages, all of the major artificial intelligence programmes are today (April 20) suffering outages.

The likes of ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini all reported down time earlier this afternoon.

On the OpenAI status page, the tech company writes: "We are investigating the issue for the listed services. Impacted users are currently unable to access ChatGPT, Codex and API Platform."

At its peak, more than 7500 users reported an issue on the site, with many no doubt struggling at work now that they don't have artificial intelligence to rely on.

It appears as if the outage may be getting better (Getty Stock)

"Chat gpt, Gemini and Claude are down? WTF?," one user wrote on X, though some noted that Elon Musk's Grok still appeared to be in full working order, which is no doubt a relief to anyone who wants to produce any more disturbing images.

Fortunately, anyone concerned about AI stealing their jobs might take some solace in the fact that nearly AI platform has decided to take the afternoon off, or gone for a particularly long cigarette break.

So, it is at least some solace that the platforms still have a lot of things to work out before they can replace us entirely, although the devastation that a lot of people are experiencing because of this also shows just how reliant we have become on the technology.

For those of you who are obsessed with asking AI weird questions and ensuring you can do as little work as possible, then at the time of writing, it seems as if some of the platforms are slowly coming back online.

ChatGPT is also working again for this writer, even if it gave me a clueless answer to a footballing question, so the worst of this 'partial outage' might soon be over.

More to follow.