Microsoft restores services after global outage affecting millions

Microsoft says it has fully restored service to all remaining customers affected by a major global outage that disrupted email and messaging for millions worldwide, marking one of the worst IT failures in years. The outage began around 6pm GMT on Thursday, impacting Microsoft 365 services including Outlook, Teams, and the Copilot AI assistant, with over 130,000 users reporting Outlook issues in the US at its peak. Microsoft attributed the cause to a technical issue, not cyber or AI-related, and UK and other governments activated contingency measures. NHS England staff used paper records during the disruption, and other AI chat services like ChatGPT and Claude were also affected. A UK minister acknowledged the incident was "inconvenient and disruptive" and had spoken with Microsoft UK's chief executive about the situation.