Microsoft Restores Services After Global Outage Affecting 70+ Countries

Microsoft said Saturday that services were fully restored after a massive global outage lasting hours, which disrupted Microsoft 365 apps including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot for users worldwide. The outage, which began around midday Thursday in the U.S., affected governments, courts, healthcare, businesses, airlines, and banks across more than 70 countries, with Japan, Singapore, and Australia reporting operational impacts. Downdetector logged user reports from these regions. Microsoft apologized Friday, stating the incident was not cyber-related or tied to AI agents, but stemmed from an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade following a recent network change. Over 430 million people use Microsoft 365 apps.