Microsoft services, including Outlook, experienced a global outage on Thursday disrupting connectivity for users across multiple regions.
The disruption affected a wide array of Microsoft 365 services, according to the company. Affected tools included the Outlook email platform, the Office software suite, the Teams messaging service, and the Copilot AI chatbot.
"We have confirmed that the issue could affect connectivity to the Microsoft 365 service for users in any region," Microsoft stated on X. The company said that several servers went offline unexpectedly, which caused an overload on the remaining infrastructure.
Data from the outage tracking site Downdetector showed that the primary impact centered on Outlook, with more than 128,000 users reporting issues with their email services throughout the day. Millions of users worldwide may have been impacted by the connectivity problems.
Engineers Implement Alternative Methods to Restore Service Stability
Microsoft engineers worked to implement an alternative method to restore service stability. The company reported that it began deploying this change more broadly to manage the server load.
"We are also preparing automated recovery systems to detect and continuously restart unresponsive servers, in order to maintain service stability while this change is implemented," the company stated.
Earlier in the day, the company had resolved a separate interruption regarding Teams that primarily impacted users in North America. Following that fix, the company identified the broader issues affecting Microsoft 365 connectivity globally.
Impact on AI Platforms
The server failures also created ripple effects for external artificial intelligence providers that rely on Microsoft infrastructure. OpenAI reported that it was investigating an issue with Microsoft connectors, noting that new connections were being interrupted and preventing tools from functioning as expected.
Anthropic also identified a failure involving a top-tier provider that impacted its own Microsoft 365 connector.
Microsoft 365 Outage Affects Office, Teams and AI Tools
The outage primarily affected Microsoft 365, which includes Outlook, the Office suite, the Teams messaging platform, and the Copilot AI assistant.
Microsoft reported that several servers went offline unexpectedly, which placed an unsustainable load on the remaining infrastructure.
Yes, third-party AI platforms including OpenAI and Anthropic reported that their own connectors to Microsoft services were failing, which disrupted the functionality of their tools for some users.
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