Microsoft has apologised to customers worldwide following a major service outage that disrupted access to several of its popular products, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams and Copilot.
The technology company attributed the disruption to a technical issue linked to an earlier network capacity upgrade, which resurfaced following a more recent network change.
The outage, which began on Thursday, November 12, affected users across approximately 74 countries and territories, disrupting communication and business operations for individuals and organisations.
Microsoft said the problem was not caused by a cyberattack or artificial intelligence activity, dismissing concerns that malicious activity or its AI systems were responsible for the widespread disruption.
The company explained that an underlying issue associated with its network infrastructure upgrade triggered the incident, creating elevated pressure on its systems and affecting service availability across multiple regions.
Outlook, which was among the most heavily affected services, experienced widespread connectivity problems, leaving users unable to access their email accounts or send and receive messages normally. Microsoft Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services also experienced disruptions.
The incident affected businesses, government agencies, schools, healthcare providers and other organisations that depend on Microsoft’s cloud-based services for daily operations.
In response, Microsoft engineers worked to identify the underlying problem, restore affected infrastructure and gradually bring services back online. By Saturday, November 14, Microsoft reported that its services had been restored and were operating normally, following an extended recovery process.
In an apology to customers and partners, the company acknowledged the disruption and said it takes seriously the trust users place in its services. Microsoft also promised to conduct a comprehensive investigation and publish a post-incident report detailing what went wrong and the measures it plans to implement to prevent similar disruptions in the future.
The outage has once again highlighted the dependence of businesses and public institutions on major cloud technology providers, raising questions about the resilience of digital infrastructure and the consequences of widespread service disruptions.
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