OpenAI’s ChatGPT suffered a brief but widespread outage due to the huge ghibli image demand, on March 30, 2025, as users around the world reported being unable to log in or generate responses across the platform. The issue appeared around noon, with Downdetector showing over 500 user reports of disruptions.
While OpenAI did not immediately confirm the cause, it later cited “elevated errors” across key services, including ChatGPT, Sora, Labs, and Playground. The company acknowledged the outage on its official status page and assured users that mitigation efforts were underway.
The crash came during a massive spike in usage – largely driven by a viral feature introduced via the GPT-4o model, allowing users to generate Studio Ghibli-style avatars. The popularity of these highly stylized images overwhelmed server capacity, particularly GPU load, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“Our GPUs got crushed,” Altman tweeted. “We’re adding temporary rate limits to stabilize the platform while scaling up. Should be short-term.”
In just a matter of hours, the internet was flooded with memes and reactions. One user wrote, “How do I explain to my professor that I couldn’t submit my paper because ChatGPT is down?” Others expressed concern over OpenAI’s dependency, while some simply joked about the AI’s new-found popularity as an image generator over a chatbot.
OpenAI resolved the Chatgpt outage caused due to the demand for ghibli style images, within roughly 30–45 minutes and confirmed that all services had fully recovered. The company also committed to publishing a detailed Root Cause Analysis (RCA) within five business days to maintain transparency and outline how it plans to prevent similar disruptions in the future.
The incident highlights a growing pain for AI platforms: balancing viral features with infrastructure limits. As users increasingly rely on tools like ChatGPT for work, school, and creative projects, even a short-term outage can send ripple effects across multiple sectors.
Until then, ChatGPT is back online – and yes, the Ghibli avatars are still going strong.
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