Microsoft, one of the largest software companies in the world, is experiencing a service outage that started on Thursday and has been affecting businesses and government agencies throughout the world.
According to The New York Times, the outage “began on Thursday afternoon, as workers and offices around the world began reporting issues with a range of Microsoft tools and apps, including email and chat software.”
By Friday morning, several airlines and artificial intelligence companies had also reported being affected by the outage.
In total, the outage has affected “government departments, banks, police forces, health services, and courts worldwide,” the Independent reported.
BREAKING: Microsoft services are beginning to come back online after a massive global outage left millions of users without access for nearly 18 hours.
The disruption affected businesses, schools and government agencies in at least 74 countries, including the United States.
Major services impacted included Outlook email, Microsoft Teams and Copilot…
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 13, 2026
In updates published online, Microsoft said it had “no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident,” according to The New York Times.
In an additional update posted early Friday morning, Microsoft reportedly added that it had completed some “recovery actions” and was beginning to see an improvement in its services in some parts of the world.
“Some users may continue to experience intermittent issues,” the update reportedly continued.
CNBC reported that some of the Microsoft apps affected by the outage included Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Copilot.
The outlet added that Microsoft’s engineering staff have been taking affected apps and services “offline and fixes and bringing them back online in stages.”
In its updates, Microsoft blamed the outage on connectivity problems related to infrastructure seeing “elevated load across multiple regions” that was caused by a “number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable.”
Some critics like Scottish commentator James Melville responded to the outage by complaining about society’s increasing dependence on technology.
“We were sold digitalisation as efficiency and security. What we actually bought is dependency and insecurity,” he wrote in a social media post.
A massive global Microsoft outage has disrupted services like Outlook, Teams, and Copilot across 74 countries.
We were sold digitalisation as efficiency and security. What we actually bought is dependency and insecurity. https://t.co/yLNO146yQK
— James Melville
(@JamesMelville) November 13, 2026
British commentator and journalist James O’Brien echoed some of Melville’s sentiment during a segment on LBC, a British phone-in and talk radio station.
“The worst thing that could happen to you 500 years ago was that someone declared war, and the first you heard of it was they turned up on the horizon on their horses with their lances,” he said.
“But now a machine in a cellar in San Francisco can get switched off and you can’t message your mom.”
“Of course, we rely upon electricity, but now we rely upon things we can barely name,” he later added. “What are you relying on if you’re relying upon Microsoft’s cloud? So utterly reliant on this stuff without ever really pausing to either appreciate it, acknowledge it, or measure it to work out what what what?”
WE DEPEND ON TECHNOLOGY WE BARELY UNDERSTAND! JAMES O’BRIEN WARNS MICROSOFT OUTAGE EXPOSES OUR DIGITAL VULNERABILITY
James O’Brien highlights how the widespread Microsoft outage has exposed society’s deep dependence on complex technology that most people barely understand. As essential services face disruption, he delivers a striking observation about the fragility of modern life…
— NewYork-Insight (@NewYork_Insight) November 13, 2026
Afghan-American nonprofit leader Ahmad Shah Mohibi added in a social media post that the outage “shows how quickly dependence on a few widely used workplace platforms can turn a technical failure into an operational problem.”
“When email, messaging and collaboration tools are unavailable, the cost reaches beyond inconvenience: companies and government offices may be unable to communicate or carry out routine work until access returns,” he continued.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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