When ChatGPT is down, a significant part of the digital workforce risks losing tempo, and it's immediately noticeable in both small and large organizations. Today ChatGPT has not functioned normally for the past 8 hours and this is a major headache for Open AI and there is no update on when ChatGPT will function normally again.
ChatGPT's Dominance Among AI Tools
ChatGPT has a market share of around 75% of the market for generative AI chatbots as of June 2025.
Between 800 million and 1 billion people use ChatGPT every week, equivalent to around 10% of the world's population. In the USA, 53% of all AI users use ChatGPT, and 20% of adult Americans report using the service in their work. [digitalsilk]
Productivity Effects When ChatGPT is Down
ChatGPT is used daily for everything from research, text production, and coding to customer service and education. 92% of Fortune 500 companies use ChatGPT in some way in their organization.
When such a dominant tool becomes unavailable, large parts of the digital workforce risk coming to a standstill. For many tasks, there are few or no equivalent alternatives with the same spread and user-friendliness.
The productivity loss can be extensive: If we assume that only 10% of the 800 million users use ChatGPT in their work, it means that tens of millions of people are directly affected during an outage.
Examples of Consequences
- Delayed reports, research, and coding projects.
- Customer service systems that rely on ChatGPT get disrupted.
- Teachers and students lose access to an important support tool
- Companies that have integrated ChatGPT into their workflows experience production disruptions.
Downdetector Confirms Extensive Problems
Downdetector showed a significant increase in reported problems that have been ongoing for nearly 8 hours.
Social media like Reddit quickly filled with frustrated users who testified to productivity stops and delays.
Alternatives to ChatGPT
There are quite a few alternatives to ChatGPT
