Microsoft has announced that its services have returned to normal following a technical failure that lasted nearly 24 hours and disrupted applications used by individuals and organisations around the world.
The outage began on Thursday, November 12, 2026, affecting more than 70 countries. Services including Outlook, Microsoft Teams and Copilot experienced disruptions, leaving many users unable to access or properly use the applications.
On Saturday morning, November 14, Microsoft announced that it had resolved the technical issue responsible for the disruption.
The technology company explained that the problem was caused by changes it had made while expanding the capacity of its technology infrastructure. It reassured customers that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack or the use of artificial intelligence.
The disruption affected government agencies, hospitals, courts, schools and businesses in several countries. The affected services are used by more than 430 million people worldwide.
In Japan, the outage disrupted the operations of government institutions, while in the Philippines, it also affected the Supreme Court.
In the United States, congressional staff reported that the technical problems delayed their activities throughout the working day.
South African wine investor Peter Pentz also said operations at his business had come to a standstill, including communication with international customers.
The widespread disruption highlighted the dependence of organisations and public institutions on Microsoft’s digital services for daily operations and communication.
Microsoft apologised to customers for the inconvenience, saying it would publish a detailed report explaining what caused the outage and how the problem was resolved.