Microsoft apologizes for global outage that hit Outlook, Teams, and Copilot

Microsoft apologized Friday after a global outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, and Copilot for nearly 18 hours, affecting millions of users across over 70 countries. The company traced the cause to a technical issue from a network capacity upgrade, ruling out a cyberattack or AI agents. Microsoft said an issue from an earlier network capacity upgrade surfaced after a recent network change, and the underlying problem has been addressed. Services are being restored gradually with stability checks, though some customers and regions still face disruptions, with a detailed post-incident report promised. The outage disrupted businesses, schools, and airlines, including Indian carriers IndiGo and Akasa Air, which reported email support delays. Downdetector recorded 138,058 Outlook issue reports at its peak, highlighting heavy reliance on Microsoft's cloud ecosystem for email, communication, and AI tools.