Numerous systems, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia, had search capability disruptions on Thursday due to a global outage by Microsoft. The troubles, which started at approximately 3 AM ET, were caused by issues with Bing's API, which is what these services depend on.

Although Bing, Microsoft's own search engine, was momentarily disrupted, third-party services were more severely affected. Users attempting to do searches were sent error warnings by DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, two search results providers that use Bing's API.

Similarly, during the downtime, ChatGPT's web surfing feature—available to Plus subscribers—was made inoperable. When users attempted to start web searches using the well-known AI chatbot, they were met with error warnings. Another casualty was Microsoft's Copilot program, which left customers stuck in an annoying loading cycle with no way out.

Services later started to sporadically come back up. Around 10:30 AM ET, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia reported recovery. Shortly after, OpenAI confirmed that ChatGPT's online surfing capabilities had been restored. Microsoft recognized the problems with Copilot and the larger mitigating initiatives.