A major Microsoft infrastructure failure has disrupted email, workplace communication and artificial intelligence services worldwide, affecting businesses, government agencies, hospitals and other critical institutions.
The disruption has affected Microsoft 365 products, including Outlook, Microsoft Teams and Copilot, with customers reporting difficulties sending and receiving emails, accessing files and retrieving calendar information.
The outage has also triggered problems for other technology companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, whose services have reported disruptions linked to Microsoft's infrastructure.
Microsoft has ruled out a cybersecurity incident, attributing the problem to elevated infrastructure loads that caused multiple servers to become unexpectedly unavailable.
Despite ongoing recovery efforts, the company has warned that some users could continue experiencing intermittent disruptions as engineers work to restore normal operations.
The disruption has affected several Microsoft products used daily by businesses, government institutions and individuals across the world.
Outlook users have reported difficulties accessing their inboxes, sending messages and receiving incoming emails. Others have experienced problems viewing files and retrieving information stored within their calendar applications.
Microsoft Teams has also experienced connectivity problems, although some users have continued accessing messaging and online meeting functions.
The disruption has extended to Microsoft's artificial intelligence platform Copilot, adding to concerns about the growing dependence of businesses on interconnected cloud computing services.
