A widespread global outage has hit Microsoft’s core cloud and productivity platforms, disrupting workplaces, airlines, schools, hospitals, and artificial intelligence tools across India, Australia, Taiwan, and North America. According to reports by News Pinch, NewsX, and ABC News, the disruption began late Thursday, November 12 (around 9:45 PM IST / 1:00 PM ET) and stretched into Friday, November 13, lasting more than seven hours.
Microsoft 365 Services and AI Connectors Affected
With over 430 million users and millions of enterprises relying on Microsoft 365 daily, the outage caused immediate bottlenecks. Outage tracker Downdetector recorded between 130,000 and 150,000 user complaints globally at its peak, including over 2,000 reports in India alone. Affected platforms include:
- Core Workplace Apps: Outlook (desktop and web mailboxes), Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, SharePoint, Exchange Online, and Planner.
- AI Tools and Third-Party Connectors: Alongside Microsoft Copilot, both OpenAI and Anthropic reported disruptions to their Microsoft 365 connectors, interrupting AI-assisted workflows for enterprise users.
Impact on Indian Airlines and Essential Institutions
In India, the technical glitch spilled over into aviation and public services. Operations at carriers including IndiGo and Akasa Air faced disruptions, resulting in three flight cancellations and two delays in New Delhi. Schools, government offices, and hospitals—where doctors rely on digital systems for patient coordination—also experienced communication slowdowns.
What Caused the Outage? Server Failures, Not a Cyberattack
Microsoft clarified via updates on X that the disruption stemmed from unexpected server failures and network configuration issues rather than a cyberattack or hacking incident. Several backend servers handling secure connections went offline, placing heavy traffic stress on remaining infrastructure.
Restoration took longer than usual because several servers entered an unhealthy state and failed to properly sync recent configuration fixes. Engineers have been restarting affected infrastructure segments and scaling up virtual machine capacity to gradually bring services back to normal.
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