Technology giant Microsoft has apologised to customers and business partners following a major global service outage that disrupted access to several widely used digital services across multiple countries.
The disruption, which began on Thursday, November 12, and continued into Friday, November 13, affected Microsoft services including Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and its artificial intelligence assistant Copilot. Businesses, government organisations, schools and other institutions experienced difficulties accessing essential communication and productivity tools.
Editorial Insight
Key Highlights
Important points readers should notice.
Microsoft apologised for a major global service disruption.
The outage began on November 12 and continued into November 13, 2026.
Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and Copilot were among the affected services.
The company attributed the disruption to an issue involving an earlier network capacity upgrade.
Microsoft said the incident was not related to a cyberattack or AI agents.
The company confirmed that the incident had been resolved by November 14.
In a public statement on Friday, Microsoft expressed regret over the disruption, acknowledging the trust customers place in its services and assuring them that the company takes its responsibilities seriously.
Microsoft clarified that the outage was caused by a technical issue and was not related to a cyberattack or artificial intelligence agents. According to the company, the incident originated from a problem during an earlier network capacity upgrade, which surfaced following a subsequent network change.
The company said it had addressed the underlying technical issue and was gradually restoring services. Recovery was carried out in stages, with stability checks conducted at each stage to ensure that services could operate reliably.
Editorial Analysis
Why This Matters
The disruption highlighted the importance of reliable digital infrastructure for businesses, government organisations and educational institutions. Interruptions to widely used cloud services can affect email communication, online meetings, collaboration and other essential operations across multiple countries.
Microsoft also reported broad recovery and improving stability across its services. In its subsequent status update on November 14, the company confirmed that the incident had been resolved and that service restoration efforts had been completed.
The outage affected organisations across different sectors and regions, highlighting the dependence of businesses and public institutions on Microsoft's cloud-based communication and productivity platforms.
Microsoft said it would release a detailed post-incident report after completing its review of the incident.
