Early lunch, more chatter: Microsoft outage brings workers to a standstill

Email bouncebacks and recurring errors in Microsoft apps caused Madison Smith and her Vancouver colleagues to take an early lunch on Thursday. Nevertheless, as the software outage persisted after lunch, the mechanical engineering student had to communicate with clients via text and slow down the day.

Despite the disruption, the office buzzed with conversation. Some staff members used the downtime to catch up on overdue tasks, like cleaning their workspaces. The Microsoft-induced shutdown affected millions of users globally and sparked widespread complaints online throughout Thursday and early Friday.

The outage, now largely resolved, impacted various Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, the AI assistant. Charles Lamanna, Microsoft's executive vice-president, stated the company is investigating the incident and devising measures to prevent future occurrences. Microsoft disclosed the root cause as a network capacity upgrade, and not a cyberattack or AI-related matter. The incident report by The Canadian Press was initially published on November 13, 2026.