Microsoft scrambles to fix global Outlook outage as users face disruption

Microsoft is grappling with a major global outage that is reportedly impacting tens of thousands of users. Services like Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft's AI software Copilot have been affected by "connectivity problems". The company announced on X that it is seeing "positive results" in efforts to restore services and is working urgently to resolve the issue.

Monitoring site Downdetector reported that reports of problems with Outlook peaked globally at nearly 140,000 around 18:00 GMT on Thursday. The BBC understands there is no indication the outage was caused by a cyber-attack. The disruption impacts programs that are part of Microsoft 365, a widely used online service among businesses for tools such as Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive.

Users might struggle to view certain files or details on their calendar apps, and Microsoft's AI platform, Copilot, may also be disrupted. Messaging and online meetings were largely operational, according to Microsoft. The company stated in a X post that the outage was caused by servers being "unexpectedly unavailable", straining its remaining systems.

A Microsoft spokesperson expressed appreciation for customers' patience while the company works to restore services as soon as possible. The company warned that some services that have been restored "can become unresponsive again" and that customers in any region could be affected. Users worldwide, including in the US, Japan, and Singapore, have reported disruptions.

The outage has also affected other companies, including AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI, which rely on Microsoft's systems. OpenAI said it is investigating an issue impacting its connections to Microsoft's services, causing some tools to not function as expected. This is not the first such outage for Microsoft; last month, the company reported an outage of its Azure cloud platform that affected its suite of productivity tools and businesses globally.

Electric truck maker Workhorse Group, expecting to report third-quarter results on November 12, rescheduled it to November 16 due to business disruptions from the global Microsoft outage.