Microsoft Copilot Experiences European Outage Amidst Surging Demand

## Microsoft Copilot Faces European Access Challenges Users of Microsoft's AI-driven Copilot digital assistant across Europe, including the United Kingdom, recently encountered significant service disruptions. The outage, which prevented access to core Copilot functionalities, highlighted the growing reliance on such advanced AI tools within the European business landscape. The incident, identified by Microsoft via service alert CP1193544, specifically affected users attempting to reach `copilot.cloud.microsoft` and `m365.cloud.microsoft`, as well as those utilizing the Copilot button integrated into the Edge browser and Microsoft Copilot within Microsoft 365 applications. Impacted individuals frequently encountered a message stating, "Sorry, I wasn’t able to respond to that. Is there something else I can help with?" Even for those who could connect, specific features often exhibited reduced performance. ### Root Cause: Capacity and Load Balancing Issues Microsoft initially acknowledged the issue, stating, "We're investigating an issue in which users in the United Kingdom may be unable to access Microsoft Copilot, or experience degraded functionality with some features." The company's initial review of telemetry data pointed towards an unexpected surge in traffic as the primary cause, leading to a capacity scaling problem. "Indications from service monitoring telemetry suggest an unexpected increase in traffic has resulted in impact. We're continuing to investigate further to determine the next steps required," Microsoft communicated. The company subsequently began manually increasing capacity to address the demand. Further investigation uncovered a secondary, related issue: load-balancing challenges. "We’ve identified a separate issue affecting load balancing, which is also contributing to the overall impact. We’re making changes to our load balancing rules to provide relief. In parallel, we're continuing to work on increasing capacity to meet demand," Microsoft explained. ### Resolution and Broader Context The incident was ultimately resolved by reverting a recent policy change that had adversely affected service traffic balancing. "We've successfully reverted the policy change in all affected environments and our telemetry confirms that the impact is fully resolved," Microsoft confirmed. This Copilot outage occurred amidst other service issues for Microsoft. A separate incident, DZ1193516, was also being tracked, causing errors for some administrators attempting to access Microsoft Defender for Endpoint features, such as device inventory and threat analytics. This followed another significant outage just a week prior, which had temporarily blocked access to certain Defender XDR portal capabilities, including threat hunting alerts. The series of incidents underscores the complexities of maintaining robust cloud infrastructure supporting advanced AI services across diverse geographical regions, particularly as demand for these technologies continues to soar within the European market.