Microsoft struggling to restore Outlook and Teams after global outage

Microsoft is grappling with a global outage that has disabled Outlook, Teams, and its AI assistant Copilot for over 14 hours, disrupting thousands of workers on Friday. The outage, affecting 74 countries, peaked at nearly 140,000 reports of issues accessing Outlook around 6pm GMT on Thursday, according to monitoring website Downdetector.

Microsoft attributes the disruption to servers becoming unexpectedly unavailable, straining its remaining infrastructure. The company warns that services could become unresponsive again even after being restored and is actively pursuing multiple paths to mitigate the impact. Reports of problems accessing Outlook reached their highest point in over 14 hours, and Microsoft has ruled out a cyber attack.

The disruption threatens to derail the working day for British businesses reliant on Microsoft's software for emails, meetings, and internal communications. Swiss luxury goods group Richemont delayed the announcement of its half-year financial results on Friday morning due to the outage but later published the figures. Over 430 million people globally use Microsoft 365 applications, and AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic have also reported problems linked to Microsoft's infrastructure.

Technology analyst Paul Spain warns that if the outage continues for 24 hours, it could become the "most severe technology outage in history," potentially affecting billions of dollars in business operations. The incident has already impacted banks, government agencies, and courts in several countries, with some organizations forced to delay operations.

This outage follows a separate issue with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform last month and echoes a global IT failure in 2024, where a faulty CrowdStrike update grounded flights and disrupted banking services. The incident highlights the inherent dangers of relying heavily on American technology providers and the need for European governments to strengthen domestic digital infrastructure.

Computing professor Toby Murray warns of the potential for major outages at one provider to significantly reduce business productivity globally. This incident comes at a challenging time for the US tech sector, following Nvidia's sharp market value decline of nearly $600 billion after the resignation of its CEO, Jensen Huang. The chip giant's collapse has added to a broader tech sell-off, prompting investors to question whether the billions invested in artificial intelligence will yield sufficient returns.