Microsoft says its services have been fully restored after a global outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other tools. The company said early Saturday, November 14, that work to address the underlying problem was complete and customers should no longer be affected, according to BBC News.
The disruption began to emerge on Thursday and affected users in more than 70 countries. Microsoft products used by more than 430 million people worldwide were involved, with reports of disruption to business operations and government services.
Microsoft attributed the issue to a “network capacity upgrade” and said it was not caused by a cyberattack or an artificial intelligence agent. The company apologized to customers and partners and said it would publish a full post-incident report after completing its review.
Organizations report disruption across several countries
The effects reached public institutions and businesses, including parts of the UK’s National Health Service, schools and police forces. UK cyber minister Liz Lloyd said the impact on critical frontline services such as 999 calls was limited, with no disruption to the transport network.
In Canada, the national rail network warned that passengers might not receive email updates about their trips, while hospitals also reported email problems. Staff at the US House of Representatives told Politico the outage set back a day of legislative work because communications relied on Outlook.
Businesses and individuals were affected too. South African winemaker Peter Pentz said the outage halted critical production work and disrupted communication related to exports. In Staffordshire, England, a homebuyer said a planned completion was delayed because her solicitor could not contact other agencies.
Microsoft began reporting recovery on Friday, with improvements spreading across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It said services were restored gradually to help keep them stable. Cybersecurity executive Rob Demain described the incident as a reminder of how heavily organizations rely on a small number of major technology providers.