Unexpected server failures interrupted Microsoft services alongside OpenAI and Anthropic connectors before gradual recovery began early Friday morning.
NEW DELHI, India — A widespread global outage disrupted Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and several other Microsoft applications for more than seven hours on Friday, impacting thousands of users and spilling over into connected artificial intelligence platforms.
Microsoft attributed the disruption to unexpected server failures. The technical breakdown also affected Microsoft 365 connectors utilized by OpenAI and Anthropic, interrupting data connections and degrading the functionality of their AI tools.
User complaints regarding Outlook issues spiked on outage-tracking platform Downdetector at approximately 1:30 am on Friday, reaching a peak of 1,38,058 reports. By 4:30 am, incident reports had declined to roughly 34,490 as systems began stabilizing.
In an official statement released at 3:30 am on Friday, Microsoft confirmed that engineering teams were actively working to restore the impacted servers, adding that affected services were recovering gradually as users reconnected.
