As millions grapple with disrupted emails and downed services, attorney and cybersecurity expert Leeza Garber explains why a simple server issue can cripple a tech giant, and why it’s reasonable to wonder if AI or hackers were involved. Microsoft’s suite of workplace products — including its Outlook email service and Copilot AI assistant — remained severely disrupted Friday as a global outage dragged into its second day, hampering everyday operations for major businesses and millions of users worldwide. Microsoft ruled out the possibility of a hack or other foul play being responsible for the outage, saying “we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident.”In morning service updates at 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET, Microsoft said it was seeing recovery progress across Europe and the Asia Pacific region, noting that Japan remained “comparatively more stable.” Services in North America were also improving by 7 a.m., though the company cautioned that “some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue.” People pass near the Microsoft offices in Tokyo on Nov. 13, 2026. (Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)NATIONWIDE MICROSOFT EMAIL SERVICE OUTAGE DISRUPTS BUSINESS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS ACROSS USThe disruption began Thursday afternoon and crippled Exchange Online, the underlying engine that powers Microsoft’s email infrastructure.As of Friday morning, many Outlook users were still unable to access their inboxes or send and receive emails Friday morning as engineers worked to clear email queues and backlogs.Microsoft said it extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages while services recover. Normally, if an email cannot be delivered within a standard window, mail servers give up and bounce the message back to the sender.That gives emails caught in the backlog since the outage began Thursday afternoon until at least Saturday afternoon to reach recipients once systems recover. A computer screen showing no service available from Microsoft Outlook on Nov. 13, 2026, in Falmouth, Cornwall, United Kingdom. (Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images / Getty Images)MICROSOFT AI BEATS DOCTORS IN SIMULATED DIAGNOSIS TESTOutlook, of course, is used for far more than email, with users reporting disruptions to key scheduling and productivity tools. This includes viewing calendars, sending meeting invites or editing existing events.Beyond Outlook, the disruption is also affecting Microsoft’s broader workplace suite, preventing users from viewing recently used files in apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, while blocking external file sharing in SharePoint Online.Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant integrated across Microsoft 365, also remained heavily disrupted — leaving users unable to load chats, generate responses or pull data from their emails, calendars and files. Major AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, have reported major disruptions to their Microsoft 365 integration tools. Those disruptions were ongoing as of Friday morning. (Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APPThe outage has not only sidelined individual users, it has also hamstrung major corporations. Indian airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air both reported problems with their customer-support email systems, while Air India has temporarily rerouted its email services.Leading artificial intelligence firms OpenAI and Anthropic were also swept up in the worldwide failure, with both companies reporting ongoing issues with their Microsoft 365 integration tools Friday morning. Anthropic said mail, calendar and search tools in Claude’s Microsoft 365 connector are “still failing for most requests,” while OpenAI warned that new Microsoft connections for ChatGPT could fail and that existing tools were not working as expected.
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