A major Microsoft outage disrupted search functions for several platforms, including Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and third-party services. The issues started around 3 AM ET on Thursday, May 23 due to problems with Bing’s API, which these services use.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, had a brief disruption, but the outage hit third-party services harder. DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, which rely on Bing’s API, showed error messages to users trying to search. 

ChatGPT’s web browsing feature for Plus subscribers also stopped working, with users seeing error messages when trying to search. Microsoft’s Copilot service faced a loading loop, preventing access. The outage affected the Bing Image Creator tool too.

The company acknowledged the issues and said, “We’re investigating an issue where users may be unable to access the Microsoft Copilot service. We’re working to isolate the cause of the issue. More information can be found in the admin center under CP795190.”

Services started to recover later. DuckDuckGo and Ecosia were back online around 10:30 AM ET, and OpenAI confirmed that ChatGPT’s web browsing was restored soon after.