Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence service experienced a significant system failure on Tuesday morning, rendering its primary chatbot and Claude Code tool inaccessible for many users. The company's status page officially listed a "major outage" for the Claude website and Claude Code, while its Claude API and Claude Cowork features remained operational.
Thousands of users reported problems accessing the service on the third-party outage tracker DownDetector. In a statement on its status dashboard, Anthropic said, "We have identified an issue resulting in elevated errors on Claude.ai, including desktop and mobile. Users may experience errors when attempting to login, engaging with voice mode, or completing chats with Claude. We are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible."
History of Recent Instability
This incident is not isolated. The service faced similar access problems just one day earlier on Monday, and Anthropic's public status log shows various technical issues occurring over recent weeks. The outage comes amid a surge in user interest, with downloads of the Claude mobile app briefly surpassing its rival, OpenAI's ChatGPT, on the Apple App Store in early March.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment from Business Insider regarding the cause or scale of the disruption.
Context and Market Position
Claude, developed by the AI safety startup Anthropic, has become a major competitor in the generative AI market. The company, founded by former OpenAI researchers, has positioned Claude as a more ethically-aligned alternative, focusing on constitutional AI principles. Its recent popularity spike highlights the growing consumer and developer reliance on these tools for daily tasks.
The repeated service interruptions raise questions about the scalability and infrastructure resilience of leading AI platforms as user bases expand rapidly. Industry analysts note that maintaining consistent uptime is a critical challenge for AI-as-a-service companies whose products are integrated into professional workflows.
As of the latest update, Anthropic's team continues to work on a resolution. The company has not provided an estimated time for full service restoration. Users are advised to monitor the official Anthropic status page for updates.