Microsoft has restored Outlook, Teams and other affected services after a global outage that disrupted workplace communication, government operations and business activity for more than 24 hours, the company said on Saturday.
“We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions,” Microsoft said in a post on X. The company said its efforts to resolve the incident had been completed across the remaining affected locations and customer accounts.
The outage affected two of Microsoft’s most widely used workplace applications. Outlook users were unable to perform essential functions including sending emails and managing calendars, while Teams users faced disruption to virtual meetings and other online communications. Microsoft’s Copilot artificial intelligence assistant was also affected.
Microsoft said server issues were behind the incident and that it was not aware of any malicious activity. The company’s statement ruled out AI as the cause of the outage, while confirming that the disruption was linked to problems affecting its server infrastructure.
The impact extended beyond individual users and private workplaces. Public statements cited in the report indicated that government agencies in Australia, Japan and the United States were affected. Trading firms reported delays, some companies were hindered in publishing earnings, and airlines warned customers about communication lags.
The disruption highlighted the dependence of public agencies, businesses and transport operators on shared digital services for routine operations. Email, calendars and online meeting platforms now support functions that range from internal administration to customer communication and the release of time-sensitive corporate information. When those services become unavailable, the effects can spread across organisations even when physical infrastructure remains operational.
The outage did not affect all Microsoft customers in the same way. Organisations that host Microsoft services on their own servers, rather than using cloud-based systems, were somewhat spared, according to the report. This distinction reflects the different ways institutions deploy workplace software and digital infrastructure.
Microsoft’s services are used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, making the incident significant for offices, public authorities and other organisations that rely on cloud-hosted applications. For these users, restoring access resolved the immediate disruption, but the outage also brought attention to how routine urban administration and business operations depend on the availability of a small number of global technology platforms.
Microsoft said it had restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions after addressing the underlying issue. The company did not provide further details in the supplied statement about the duration of any follow-up monitoring or additional measures.
