On Thursday morning, 12 November 2026, Microsoft faced a major outage that disrupted key services for millions of people around the world.
The problems affected Outlook, Teams and the AI assistant Copilot. Access to them was limited in at least 74 countries.
The company is actively working to resolve the issues. Users have been reporting connection problems for more than a day.
The outage began around noon Eastern Time in the US and spread quickly. Downdetector recorded a surge in complaints from dozens of countries within the first hour.
Microsoft confirmed that the problem is technical in nature and not related to cyberattacks. Recovery is proceeding gradually, but in some regions services are still experiencing disruptions.
Not only private users but also organizations were affected: from government agencies to courts and medical services. Many employees found themselves without access to email and collaboration tools.
How much longer will recovery take, and what will be the long-term consequences of dependence on one company's cloud services?
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues monitoring and status updates. Users are advised to follow the company's official communications.
