The news: 2024 saw a continuing trend of widespread network and service outages affecting companies, consumers, and government agencies, stemming from overburdened service platforms, consolidations of industry power, and cyberattacks.

Biggest interruptions:

• February: More than 70,000 AT&T customers, 3,000 Verizon customers, and over 1,100 T-Mobile users reported prolonged service outages.
• March: Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms went down on Super Tuesday, affecting more than half a million Facebook users. The networks crashed again in April.
• June: A ransomware attack on CDK Global took down sales, accounting, inventory, and communications systems for nearly 15,000 car dealerships.
• July: Cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike made a software update that crashed Microsoft Windows computers around the world. The outage caused over $5 billion in losses from grounded flights, downed emergency services, and disruptions to businesses and banks.
• August: Internet outages affected AT&T customers again during a strike involving more 17,000 workers.
• October: A massive Bank of America outage disrupted digital services and in-branch operations for thousands of users.
• December: Another Microsoft outage affected Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive, raising questions about whether its data centers are overburdened.

While not an explicit outage, Brazil’s suspension of X in September pushed at least 2.6 million users to social media platform Bluesky, underscoring how quickly users will migrate when a relied-on service isn’t available.

Cons of consolidation: Company mergers and several sectors’ reliance on a small handful of leading providers may have exacerbated these disruptions. This risk is especially prevalent within the cloud computing and connectivity industries.

GenAI’s services vulnerable to outages: OpenAI remains a titan in the world of generative AI (genAI). However, any issues with its service can overburden competitors and may affect partners’ operations.

• Its ChatGPT bot was briefly inaccessible in June. Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and Perplexity AI likewise went out of service the same day, potentially due to an unexpected wave of ChatGPT users flooding their platforms.
• Cyberattacks or errors within its underlying infrastructure could make services with ChatGPT integrations fail or operate poorly, including within Apple devices.

Our take: Offering compensation for periods of lost service and transparent communication about why outages occurred can boost customer trust, but implementing backup systems will be crucial. Deals with satellite operators, such as SpaceX, could help mobile operators reach remote consumers and maintain emergency systems.