Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook and Microsoft 365 globally

A major outage hit Microsoft's Outlook email service on Thursday, leaving tens of thousands of users unable to access their messages, with the company saying it was working "relentlessly" to resolve the issue. Microsoft initially investigated reports of outages "in the Americas" but later confirmed the problem could affect Microsoft 365 sign-ins for users in any region worldwide. Downdetector showed nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook issues shortly after 6 p.m. GMT, with about 50,000 users still affected three hours later. The outage also disrupted AI assistants like Microsoft's Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT, which rely on Microsoft accounts for email and calendar access. Public services were impacted, including the University of Iowa hospital network, which asked patients to use its online portal to contact caregivers.