Microsoft outage hits Outlook, Teams, Copilot across US and Asia-Pacific

Microsoft services including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot experienced a major outage on Friday, affecting users in the US and Asia-Pacific after server problems disrupted operations for roughly 12 hours. The tech giant struggled to fix the issue, with adjustments failing to produce sustained recovery. The outage impacted government agencies in Australia, Japan, and the US, plus companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft stated it was not aware of any malicious activity, and Australian officials compared the incident to a faulty update similar to the 2024 CrowdStrike disruption. Downdetector reported over 130,000 US Outlook complaints at its peak. This marks the second Microsoft 365 outage this year, following disruptions in January and October, raising concerns about reliability. Indian airlines and Taiwanese financial firms were affected, and analysts warned repeated failures could make corporate clients hesitant to expand reliance on Microsoft's ecosystem.