Microsoft explains what caused global outage, Outlook to go down for millions of users

Share Add Us On Google Add as a preferred source on Google REDMOND, Wash. (Gray News) - Microsoft has apologized for a global service outage that has disrupted millions of users this week. The tech giant took to social media on Friday to offer an apology to its users while explaining the cause of the outage that appeared to have started on Thursday. “We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners. We know the trust they place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously,” Microsoft shared. The Microsoft outage disrupted business communications, police crime reporting, court operations, AI tools and left multiple businesses across the world without access to Outlook emails and other platforms. On Friday, Microsoft said it was making headway as it worked to restore services. “We are seeing broad recovery and stability across our services,” the company said. According to Microsoft, the outage was related to a technical issue that was not related to cyber or artificial intelligence agents. “The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change. We have addressed the underlying issue and continue to restore service to remaining customers and regions,” Microsoft said. The company added that it has been restoring services gradually while validating stability at each stage, a process that has taken longer, but it has helped ensure a stable restoration. The total number of people affected by the outage was not immediately shared, but the company stated earlier this year that it had more than 450 million paid Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions. Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.