Millions forced to use brain as ChatGPT takes day off

A widespread ChatGPT outage on 10 June 2025 disabled OpenAI’s services globally, disrupting users across Africa, the United States, India, and the United Kingdom. The interruption left professionals, students, and creative minds stuck mid-task, exposing how deeply daily routines now rely on AI.

The outage began around 8:45 AM Namibian time, with peak disruptions reported by 11:30 AM, disrupting students, professionals, and businesses across the globe. Thousands of errors were reported, such as “Service Temporarily Unavailable,” and message streams were stopped across web, app, and API channels. OpenAI later confirmed elevated error rates were affecting ChatGPT, Sora, and its API, and worked through the day to restore services. 

The outage spurred more than half a million Google searches and viral memes, shining a light on how reliant people have become on AI assistants for writing emails, studying, coding, and even emotional support.

“Millions forced to use brain as ChatGPT takes day off.”

Local tech expert Nrupesh Soni weighs in, calling it a digital dependency crisis: “We’ve woven AI into every corner of work and study, so when it falls over, so do we.”