Microsoft says a network-upgrade problem—not AI agents—caused the Microsoft 365 outage that disrupted Outlook, Teams and other services. According to the company, an issue introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade surfaced following a more recent network change. Source Source
“This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents,” Microsoft said in its statement. It apologized to customers and partners for the disruption. Source
In its recovery statement, Microsoft reported “broad recovery and stability across our services” and said it had addressed the underlying issue. But it also said restoration was continuing for remaining customers and regions. Fixing the fault and getting every inbox working aren't the same milestone. Source
Microsoft said it restored services gradually because of the scale of demand, checking stability at each stage. The company acknowledged that this took longer but said it helped ensure a stable restoration. Source
The disruption didn't stay politely inside an inbox
Neowin described an outage lasting over a day, affecting Exchange Online, Outlook and SharePoint, as well as Exchange-dependent features in Teams, Copilot, Defender, Intune and Planner. Source
Workhorse Group delayed its quarterly earnings conference call, according to AP reporting carried by The Mainichi. Singapore's Government Technology Agency reported government email disruption, while the Philippines' Supreme Court said some operations, including email responses, were affected. Source
Air India temporarily rerouted email services, and IndiGo reported disruption to email support. The detour was for messages, not planes: both said flight operations were unaffected. Source
AI tools were also on the receiving end: OpenAI and Anthropic each reported problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools, according to AP. Being caught in an outage isn't evidence of causing it. Source
Microsoft's statement didn't give dates for the two network changes, a detailed failure mechanism or measures to prevent a repeat. The company promised a full post-incident report once its review was complete. Source
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