Microsoft fully restores service after global outage affecting 74 countries

Microsoft announced Saturday that it has fully restored service after a global outage that affected millions of users and organizations worldwide since Thursday. The company stated it completed efforts to resolve the issue and restored service for all remaining affected users and regions. Microsoft had already reported a "widespread recovery" on Friday and apologized for the interruption, attributing it to a technical problem unrelated to cybersecurity or artificial intelligence. The outage spread globally on Thursday, affecting products in at least 74 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The failures, caused by "elevated load" on the group's infrastructures, impacted Outlook email, Teams communication platform, and the Copilot AI assistant, according to Downdetector monitoring data.