Microsoft “Deeply Sorry” About Global Outlook Outage; Insists Disruption Caused By “Network Capacity Upgrade”

November 13, 2026 11:49am

Microsoft feel really bad about the Outlook outage and 365 services crash that brought many business communications and personal email around the globe to a screeching halt this week.

“We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused you and your business,” the Redford, WA-based software company late Friday morning as email and other Microsoft 355 programs started working again, some more sporadically than others.

After what some termed an adult snow day on November 12, Microsoft offered a bit more insight into what went so wrong and how the conspiracy theories were wrong.

“This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents,” the Bill Gates and Paul Allen-founded company stated in its latest update page missive. “The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change. We have addressed the underlying issue and continue to restore service to remaining customers and regions.”

As the outage spread like digital wildfire and saw the heavily subscribed email system sputter, freeze or just totally crap out, internet chatter and Gmail exchanges saw many pointing the finger at either a rogue AI attack, There was even those who sought to blame the Outlook outage due to the online toggling and slowing occurring around the world due to the millions downloading the over 100GB Grand Theft Auto 6 ahead of the November 19 launch of the megagame.

To that, Microsoft ended its latest update today with a “We will provide a full post-incident report once our review is complete.” No timeline was given as to when that review will be complete.

We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners. We know the trust they place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously. We are seeing broad recovery and stability across our services.

This was a technical issue…

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) November 13, 2026

The disruption had little effect on Microsoft stock, which rose over $1 from Thursday to current trading at a healthy $524.26 ahead of the market’s close in a couple of hours.