OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has an important update for Studio ‘Ghibli’ users/fans. In a series of posts on Twitter, ChatGPT maker CEO Altman announced that the overwhelming popularity of the company’s new ChatGPT image-generation tool will lead to unspecified product delays. The surge in demand has strained the company’s infrastructure, prompting Altman to warn users of slower service and potential disruptions as OpenAI scrambles to address capacity challenges.
“We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for service to sometimes be slow as we deal with capacity challenges,” Altman wrote. He emphasized that the team is “working as fast we can to really get stuff humming,” even appealing for additional GPU capacity in a follow-up post: “If anyone has GPU capacity in 100k chunks we can get asap please call!”
ChatGPT sees one million downloads in one hour
The announcement follows a weekend of unprecedented growth for ChatGPT. Altman revealed that the platform gained a million new users in a single hour on Monday, March 31, boosting its weekly user base to 500 million and its paying subscribers to 20 million—up from 300 million users and 15.5 million subscribers at the end of 2024. The rapid adoption has been fueled by the new image-generation feature, which launched with widespread acclaim for its ability to mimic styles like Studio Ghibli’s iconic hand-drawn animation, though it has also sparked controversy.
Over the weekend, Altman admitted that OpenAI “hasn’t been able to catch up” since the tool’s debut, with staff working late nights and weekends to maintain service stability. To mitigate the strain, the company has delayed the image-generation tool’s rollout to free ChatGPT users and temporarily disabled video generation for new users of Sora, its generative AI media suite.
Altman’s posts suggest a full-court press to resolve the issues, though no specific timeline for new releases was provided. As the company navigates this explosive growth, users can expect a bumpy road ahead as OpenAI races to scale its infrastructure.
