Did Apple’s Siri Overload ChatGPT? Analysts Say It Might Be the Cause of the Outage

On Wednesday, users of OpenAI’s AI-powered ChatGPT and Meta Platforms’ Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp experienced service disruptions. Amid concerns of a potential large-scale DDoS attack, analysts suggest that the ChatGPT outage may be related to the launch of Apple’s voice assistant Siri, which is equipped with ChatGPT.

According to Downdetector, an internet monitoring site, the ChatGPT service outage began around 6 PM Eastern Time. The number of reported access problems quickly soared to over 27,000. Users reportedly struggled to access ChatGPT and an AI video generation model, Sora, due to the service outage. However, OpenAI announced that most of ChatGPT’s traffic had been restored by 7:53 PM Pacific Time on Thursday. OpenAI acknowledged receiving reports of slow login speeds and degraded functionality for some features. The company stated it was working to identify the issues and deploy fixes.

While OpenAI did not disclose the cause of the outage, some speculate it may be related to the launch of Siri, which is equipped with the ChatGPT function. On the day of the outage, Apple released an operating system featuring ChatGPT on its devices, including iPhones. This new feature allows Siri to use ChatGPT to provide answers to complex questions and problems. 9to5Mac reported that the influx of iPhone users might have overwhelmed ChatGPT’s servers, leading to access problems.

On the same day, Facebook and Instagram also experienced access problems. According to Downdetector, Facebook and Instagram went down around 12:57 PM Eastern Time (9:57 AM Pacific Time). The service disruptions extended to other Meta-owned social media platforms, including Threads, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The outages persisted for over three hours. Meta acknowledged the issues on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.” However, the company did not provide specific details about the cause of the disruptions.