Doubtful. That tool likely suggests "improved" clearances, which a controller can use at their discretion. It likely does not control clearances directly.

And the early reports describe the issue as related to ATC communication infrastructure.

That is an extremely bad idea.

This actually makes sense. I can't believe people actually think outlook being down would take down all departures across the US

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lfmao, really bad timing but I really doubt something announced yesterday went into effect today, it's probably going to be rolled out in the future.

If true and this ends up lasting an hour or more, that's going to be undeniably, objectively hilarious. At least they used to keep the planes running on time!

--- EDIT:

This could just be the first issue that's arisen -- the FAA announced it "is expanding across the nation" on Tuesday. Which could really mean anything.

FAA Announcement: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/general-statements

The Ars Technica article behind the Gizmodo one sadly doesn't have more info, either.

It'd be kind of absurd if a read-only integration took down nationwide infrastructure, but A) we've all been there... and B) the gizmodo article does mention they're also trying to phase out floppy disks for some jobs still, which tells me their CI/CD and rollback hygiene might not be top-notch. Hopefully the Real World contestant in charge of our transportation network is on site with a ClaudeCode terminal as we speak!

It does sound pretty deeply integrated, I will say:

  SMART is a cloud-based system that centralizes 200 data streams – including weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow, and controller staffing metrics – into one platform.

  Creates **a single shared real-time picture** of schedules, weather, airport capacity, and airspace conditions.
  ...
  Enhances the effectiveness of **existing** FAA air traffic management systems.

You are right, it isn't. Good for you.