Claude AI outage blocks access for thousands worldwide, affecting users in South Africa and beyond
Claude AI went down worldwide on Monday, leaving many users in South Africa unable to log in or use the chatbot. Anthropic is investigating the disruption.
Anthropic’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Claude, was unavailable to thousands of users on Monday, disrupting access to the platform across multiple regions, including South Africa.
Reports on outage-tracking site Downdetector showed a sharp increase in complaints, with users saying the chatbot would not load, respond or allow logins. The disruption affected individuals and businesses that rely on the tool for writing, research, coding and daily work tasks.
What happened?
According to Investing.com, Claude experienced a widespread service outage that prevented users from accessing the chatbot via the website and some apps. Many users encountered error messages, timeouts or blank screens.
Who is affected?
Anyone using Claude, including professionals, students and developers, reported problems. South African users, including those in KwaZulu-Natal, were among those impacted as the platform is widely used for productivity and study purposes.
Where did the outage occur?
User reports came from across Europe, Africa, Asia and North America, indicating a global disruption rather than a local technical issue.
When did the disruption begin?
Anthropic said it detected elevated error rates shortly before midday UTC on Monday. Reports continued for several hours as engineers investigated.
Why did the service go down?
The company indicated the core Claude API remained functional, but issues were linked to the Claude.ai website and authentication systems, including login processes. The exact cause had not yet been confirmed.
How users were impacted
Many users could not sign in or use the chatbot, interrupting work, school tasks and business activities. Some also reported problems with the mobile app and Claude Code, the AI-powered coding assistant.
Anthropic said it was working to restore full service but had not provided a timeline for complete recovery.
Claude is part of a family of generative AI tools developed by US-based company Anthropic and is widely used worldwide, including in South Africa.
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