Daijiworld Media Network – Washington
Washington, Nov 13: Thousands of users faced disruptions accessing Microsoft's services, including Outlook, Teams, Copilot and Microsoft 365, on Thursday and in the early hours of Friday.
According to outage-tracking platform Downdetector, around 1.3 lakh users reported problems accessing Outlook shortly after 1 pm. Thousands of others also reported difficulties using Microsoft's workplace messaging platform Teams, AI assistant Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services.
At the time of reporting, Outlook was still experiencing disruptions.
Acknowledging the issue, Microsoft said it was investigating reports of users facing difficulties accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas.
In a post on X, the company said the disruption could affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users across different regions. It directed users to the Microsoft 365 admin centre under incident reference EX1550543 for further updates.
Microsoft also said it was working to mitigate the impact and restore services.
Earlier, the company had announced that it had successfully restored issues affecting Microsoft Teams in North America. However, some users continued to report connectivity problems.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is also moving towards greater reliance on its in-house artificial intelligence models as it looks to reduce costs associated with external AI providers OpenAI and Anthropic.
According to a Bloomberg report, the company has started deploying its MAI models to handle tens of thousands of AI requests every week through applications such as Excel and Outlook.
The move is aimed at reducing the expenses involved in running advanced AI systems, which require significant computing resources. Microsoft pays for external AI services based on usage, with costs increasing as more customers use AI-powered features across its products.
Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleyman has also highlighted the impact of relying on external AI providers on the company's profits. By developing and deploying its own models, Microsoft aims to reduce expenses while gaining greater control over the technology and its integration into its services.