ChatGPT possible outage on May 13, 2026 — 20 minutes incident report
ChatGPT appeared to experience a possible outage for 20 minutes on May 13, 2026.
Incident facts
| Service | ChatGPT |
|---|---|
| Started | May 13, 2026 at 23:10 UTC |
| Resolved | May 13, 2026 at 23:31 UTC |
| Total duration | 20 minutes |
| Peak severity | Possible Outage |
| Detection | Official OpenAI status feed |
Timeline
- Possible issue detected
- Confirmed by re-check
- Severity changed: down → degraded
- Service responding normally
What happened
On May 13, 2026, ChatGPT appeared to experience a possible outage lasting 20 minutes, according to our automated monitoring. The incident was first detected by Are The Bots Down's monitoring system at May 13, 2026 at 23:10 UTC and our checks resumed normal results at May 13, 2026 at 23:31 UTC. OpenAI's public status feed reported the issue during this window. 3 status observations were recorded across the lifetime of this incident.
What to do when ChatGPT appears to be having issues
Most detected ChatGPT issues resolve within 15 minutes. While you wait, the API often stays available even when the consumer chat is having problems — check status.openai.com for the official picture, but expect that page to lag the actual incident by 20 to 40 minutes.
Most users find it faster to switch tools than to wait. The closest alternatives to ChatGPT for the same workflows are Claude or Gemini.