A massive global outage at Microsoft disrupted email services, workplace communication tools, and several cloud-based applications for nearly a day, affecting businesses, government agencies, airlines, and millions of users across countries. The disruption, which began on Thursday (November 12) and continued into Friday, hit some of Microsoft’s most widely used products, including Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365 and its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Copilot.The outage also affected government communication systems in Japan, Singapore and Australia, while Indian airlines IndiGo and Air India reported problems with their email services. AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic also faced disruptions to their Microsoft 365 integrations. In the US, outage tracking website Downdetector recorded more than 130,000 reports of Outlook-related problems at the peak of the disruption.Microsoft said it was gradually restoring services but warned that recovery remained uneven across regions. The incident has once again exposed the extent to which critical institutions and businesses depend on a handful of technology companies to keep their operations running. We explain.The disruption appears to have originated in Microsoft’s Exchange Online infrastructure, which powers email and calendar services for businesses. Microsoft initially identified an unusually high load on parts of its infrastructure before finding that several servers had unexpectedly become unavailable, putting additional pressure on the remaining systems.In its service updates, Microsoft said its engineers were restarting affected servers, redistributing traffic, and applying configuration patches. However, some servers became unresponsive again after traffic was restored, complicating recovery efforts.Also read | Microsoft outage: Company reports positive results as it works to restore servicesMicrosoft subsequently reported positive results from a patch addressing an authentication and routing configuration component. In a later update, it said recovery was progressing across regions, although “service health remains variable” and infrastructure capacity had not returned to normal.The company extended its email delivery timeout window to 48 hours to help preserve delayed messages while clearing backlogs. It also said there was “no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident”, and promised a detailed post-incident report once services were restored.Services and institutions impacted by Microsoft outageStory continues below this adMicrosoft said the disruption affected services relying on Exchange Online, although several functions remained operational. Exchange Online is Microsoft’s cloud-based email and calendar service for businesses and organisations, powering email communication, scheduling and contact management through applications such as Outlook.Outlook users experienced difficulties accessing mailboxes and sending or receiving emails. Microsoft Teams users faced problems scheduling meetings, managing calendars and creating certain events, although core messaging, calls, and meetings largely continued working.The consequences extended beyond Microsoft’s customers. British police forces reported difficulties receiving online crime reports, while the UK’s National Health Service faced email disruptions that could delay prescriptions. Government email systems were affected in Singapore and Japan, while the Philippines’ Supreme Court also reported operational difficulties.In India, IndiGo warned that its email support services were disrupted, while Air India temporarily rerouted customer emails. Both airlines said flight operations remained unaffected. OpenAI and Anthropic separately reported problems with connectors linking their AI services to Microsoft applications.Why Microsoft outages matterStory continues below this adMicrosoft is among the world’s largest technology companies, with its products embedded in the everyday operations of corporations, governments, educational institutions, and critical infrastructure providers.In January 2026, Microsoft said its Microsoft 365 commercial business had crossed 450 million paid seats worldwide. Its annual revenue reached approximately $332 billion in FY2026, reflecting the scale of its software and cloud businesses.This dependence also means failures in shared infrastructure can spread across otherwise unrelated organisations, disrupting communications and business operations simultaneously.Also in Explained | Microsoft outage: How its fallout cascaded into lives of users worldwideThe latest disruption recalls July 2024, when millions of Windows computers displayed the dreaded “blue screen of death”, grounding flights, disrupting hospitals, and affecting banking, retail, and government services worldwide. That incident, however, was different. It was triggered by a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, rather than a failure in Microsoft’s own cloud infrastructure.Story continues below this adMicrosoft estimated that around 8.5 million Windows devices were affected, representing less than 1% of all Windows machines. Nevertheless, their importance to critical services meant the consequences were felt globally.Microsoft’s workforce reductions amid rising AI investmentsThe outage also comes against the backdrop of significant workforce reductions at Microsoft as the company reorganises operations while spending heavily on AI infrastructure.Microsoft eliminated more than 15,000 jobs in 2025, followed by another 4,800 positions in July 2026 and further cuts in September. On October 26, the company announced a voluntary exit programme covering approximately 60,000 eligible employees across the US, the UK, Canada, and India. Microsoft employs around 23,000 people in India, although it has not disclosed how many would qualify for the programme.The company has maintained that these measures reflect changing business priorities and workforce requirements, rather than suggesting it no longer needs employees. As of now, there is no established link between the reductions and the latest outage.