Bringing trusted content into AI workflows is already becoming part of how work gets done. As customers increasingly connect Dropbox with the AI tools they use every day, usage across our partner AI integrations has grown more than 200% in the past month alone, with people regularly saving AI-generated content back to Dropbox, sharing files with teammates, and organizing work from their AI conversations.

Those behaviors reinforce what we're hearing from customers. They aren't looking for another place to work. They want AI to fit into the tools and content they already trust. That's why we're continuing to invest in integrations with leading AI platforms to help customers deeply embed Dropbox into their workflows and move from isolated AI conversations to work that's easier to share, organize, and build on.

Today, we're building on that momentum with new Dropbox capabilities across OpenAI products, including new experiences in their recently announced ChatGPT Work, as well as ChatGPT and ChatGPT Codex. Dropbox customers can now use new tools to organize files and folders, create shareable links, generate file requests and execute multi-step workflows with these capabilities as official Dropbox-created skills, all directly within the OpenAI products they use most.

"AI is most useful when it has the right context," said Vibhor Chhabra, Product Lead for ChatGPT Ecosystem, OpenAI. "The Dropbox plugin helps customers combine ChatGPT's intelligence with the content they already have in Dropbox so they can spend more time on high-impact work.”

AI workflows grounded in trusted content

As organizations bring AI into more of their everyday work, IT administrators need confidence employees are working from approved content instead of creating disconnected company information. Because ChatGPT is integrated with the Dropbox content employees already have permission to access, organizations can expand AI adoption while keeping work secure through their existing permissions, administrative controls, and governance.

• Deploy AI securely: Imagine an IT administrator rolling out ChatGPT. They can give teams access to the Dropbox content they already have permission to use. Employees can find company-trusted content, generate summaries, and save AI-generated work back to Dropbox, while IT maintains permissions, governance, and administrative controls.
• Launch campaigns faster: Now take a product marketing manager preparing for a major launch or customer event. Instead of searching across folders for previous launch plans, messaging documents, executive briefing materials, and campaign assets, they can quickly find the right content, generate a summary, and save that work back to Dropbox so the team can review and build on it. 
• Keep projects moving: The same principle applies in technical, document-heavy industries. Instead of manually gathering documentation to understand project history, a construction company preparing for a big build can work directly from the materials already stored in Dropbox. They can quickly find the latest specifications, review documentation from previous phases, understand how decisions were made, generate summaries for subcontractors, and plan next steps, all grounded in the trusted project information the broader team already relies on.

From AI conversations to connected work

Because Dropbox is the trusted system for more than 700 million registered users and organizations, it provides the secure, portable context that powers AI across tools and models. As more work starts in AI, Dropbox helps ensure the outputs behind that work remain organized, shareable, and connected to the teams that need them long after each conversation ends.

To get started, connect the Dropbox plugin and start bringing your content into your AI workflows.

AI has fundamentally changed how we create, but it has also introduced a new kind of fragmentation. As work bounces between isolated AI chat windows, shared folders, and endless collaboration apps, critical context gets lost in the gaps.

That challenge becomes especially acute for teams already relying on Dropbox to coordinate creative production, review and approve content, share large files, and keep complex projects moving across internal teams and external partners. While AI tools are becoming a bigger part of how work gets done, it’s often harder than it should be to connect these tools to the content and apps that teams use to collaborate each day. What’s missing is context.

To help close the gap between teams, their content, and the AI they use, today we’re introducing three new Dropbox integrations across Claude’s portfolio: the Dropbox Connector for Claude, the Dropbox Plugin for Claude Cowork, and the Dropbox Plugin for Claude Code. These integrations will make it easier for our more than 700 million users to bring their existing content and workflows into some of today’s most popular AI experiences.

As a central home for content and collaboration, Dropbox gives AI tools—like Claude’s—the right context for your work. By bringing your teams’ files, feedback, and workflows into your conversations, work stays grounded in trusted content and governed by the same permissions teams already rely on, making the AI you already use even more useful. And because content, feedback, and project history live across the tools teams use every day, Dropbox provides a consistent source of context that can travel with you into Claude or any AI tool you choose.

With these integrations, customers can extend their workflows into AI tools in a way that feels useful, practical, and true to how work already gets done without losing the context, coordination, and collaboration that make work possible.

Dropbox plugin for Claude Cowork

For teams that want to do more with their work than search or summarize, the Dropbox plugin for Claude Cowork can help turn ideas into action. Have Cowork sort through client feedback, send deliverables to external partners, or create entirely new assets based on existing Dropbox content—all on its own. You can prompt it to organize your files and folders, generate links for secure sharing, and draft text-based files in formats such as CSV, markdown, HTML, and JavaScript. And when Cowork is finished, it can save the results back to Dropbox for immediate collaboration.

A marketing agency preparing for a campaign review with a client might point Cowork at a Dropbox folder containing the campaign brief, creative assets, copy drafts, client feedback, and final deliverables. Instead of manually sorting through files to understand project status, the team can have Cowork organize materials, surface relevant feedback, and prepare a client-ready recap. Once the review is complete, they can save outputs back to Dropbox and share deliverables directly from Cowork.

Dropbox plugin for Claude Code

With the Dropbox plugin for Claude Code, developers can now use Dropbox files, documentation, and supporting materials as context while generating, updating, or reasoning through code and technical work. This means less time switching between tools trying to find what you need to get work done, or sharing updates and outputs with your team. Organize your project folder into specs, meeting notes, and assets, or create a decision log from a conversation and save it to Dropbox in markdown, all from where you’re already building.

A developer can bring project files—including documentation, technical specs, and supporting materials—from Dropbox into Claude Code as context for technical work. Instead of searching across multiple systems to understand requirements or project history, they can engage directly with the team’s existing documentation to answer questions, review decisions, and generate outputs grounded in trusted project content. Throughout the day, they can save decision logs back to Dropbox and share implementation notes with teammates.

Bring the power of your content to AI

AI is only as smart as the context you give it. By anchoring Claude in Dropbox, we're ensuring your AI-driven workflows are secure, accurate, and deeply integrated into the tools your team already uses every day.

Ready to get started? Enable the Dropbox integrations directly within your Claude workspace today. Need help? View the Help Center article here. 

Today, we announced that Ashraf Alkarmi will become Dropbox co-CEO alongside Drew Houston. Following a transition period, Ashraf will become sole CEO and Drew will move into the role of executive chairman. Drew and Ashraf shared the news with Dropboxers this morning in the emails below. Congratulations, Ashraf!

~ ~ ~

Subject: Congratulations Ashraf, our new co-CEO!

Hi team,

Today we're promoting Ashraf Alkarmi to co-CEO of Dropbox. Ashraf has done an incredible job transforming our core business, and I can't think of a better leader for Dropbox’s next chapter. Ashraf and I will jointly lead the company, and after a transition period I'll move into the role of executive chairman and Ashraf will be the sole CEO.

I want to share why we're doing this and why now. Our business is in a stronger position than it's been in years, and a lot of that is because of Ashraf. He inherited a challenging setup when he took over our core business. Many inside and outside the company were skeptical that our trajectory could change, but Ashraf saw things differently. He made difficult and courageous calls, placed some smart bets, and those bets are paying off. While there's still plenty of important work ahead, the business has been getting stronger every quarter.

Early in running Dropbox, someone gave me a piece of advice: before you hire anyone, ask yourself if you'd feel good about your little brother or sister working for this person (I didn’t have kids at the time.) Ashraf is that leader. He cares deeply about the work and he cares deeply about the people doing the work. He tells the truth even when it's hard and disagrees with me when I'm wrong. And anyone who has done karaoke with Ashraf at our offsites knows our culture is in good hands.

Ashraf has spent his whole career—at Amazon, at Vimeo, and before—building products for the creative and content-focused customers we serve. He's also been leading from the front on AI. Last December, while most of the world was on break, Ashraf was building prototypes with AI tools and pushing us to think bigger about what our products could become. I can’t wait for our customers to see the next generation of the Dropbox experience.

Ashraf and I will be working side-by-side through the transition. I care about Dropbox as much as I ever have, and that's not going to change. My focus right now is making sure Dropbox is in the strongest possible shape. But knowing me, it won't be long before I'm getting credit card alerts for my Cursor token spend.

Please join me in congratulating Ashraf. We'll do an All Hands today at 10am PT where we’ll take your questions, and we’ll have more time together in the coming days.

Drew

~ ~ ~

Reply from Ashraf:

Hi team, 

First, I want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity and trust that comes with this role. Dropbox is a company and product I’ve admired for a long time, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to work alongside this team. I’m also beyond excited about this next chapter for Dropbox!

What’s energized me most since joining Dropbox is the connection people have with our brand. I’ve heard it over and over in conversations with customers around the world, from creative teams at Sundance to long-time users who tell me Dropbox was one of the first products they ever paid for. Dropbox is a trusted home for their most important work, and that creates a real responsibility for us to keep improving the experience for them.

I’m really excited to double down on customer obsession and build products that solve hard, real problems for the people who rely on Dropbox every day. Our customers are asking us to do much more in the AI era, and we need to keep innovating aggressively to improve how work gets done.

As Drew said, we’re in a much stronger position than we’ve been in years, and that progress is thanks to all of you. Over the last year and a half, we’ve gotten much clearer about our priorities, where we invest, and how we operate. We’ve built a much stronger foundation as a company, and that focus is showing up in our results and in how people are engaging with our products. 

It gives me a lot of confidence in what’s ahead for Dropbox, and I’m grateful to the teams across the company who’ve stepped up, taken ownership, and helped drive that transformation!

My commitment to you is that we’ll be deliberate about where we’re going and how we work. We’re entering a new chapter where we’ll be even more focused on our customers. We’ll make decisions grounded in their needs and in the results we’re seeing, and continue growing from the foundation we’ve put in place.

I have a lot of admiration and respect for the company Drew has built and the values that have shaped it over the years: customer obsession, trust, and integrity. Those things matter deeply to me as a leader, too.

Those values have also shaped how Drew and I work together. We’ve built a working relationship grounded in trust, truth telling, and doing what’s best for our customers, and we’ll continue working closely together through this next phase. We also both care about building a culture where people are kind, direct, and focused on customer impact.

Looking ahead, my priority is to give our leaders the support and clarity they need to stay focused and keep performing at this level. A big part of that is the strength we have across our executive team. We have an incredible group with strong operational experience who know our customers and know how to execute.

On that note, I’m really excited to share that Mike Torres will be joining Dropbox and our senior leadership team as our new Chief Product Officer on July 7. Mike brings deep experience leading and scaling products used by hundreds of millions of people, including leadership roles across Chrome, Kindle, and OneDrive, along with a strong track record of driving focus across large organizations. We’ll share more on Mike and the Product Organization this week, with more details to follow this summer. 

I know we have all the right ingredients to be successful: a trusted brand with more than 700 million global registered users, deep customer relationships, and employees who genuinely care about the quality of what we build.

I’m so excited about where we can go from here!

Looking forward to continuing the conversation at the All Hands shortly.

Ashraf

Producer, songwriter, and musician Fred again.. is teaming up with Dropbox to share never-before-seen creative and raw material from his USB002 tour. 

In each city, people attending his shows were encouraged to be present and enjoy the moment together by putting their phones away. In return, Fred promised to give them direct access to videos and photos via Dropbox after the show. Now that the tour is over, Fred has opened up other folders with more creative, including previously unseen behind-the-scenes creative from USB002, artwork, photos, posters and other creative artifacts.

Inside the drop, you’ll find:

• Original flag design from the USB002 era
• ⁠Show posters 
• Vinyl artwork and templates
• ⁠All release artworks, including unseen and unused artwork options
• Ambient show creative folder
• ⁠Unseen images from each show 
• ⁠Visual stems from slo-mo visualizers

These are the actual working Dropbox files Fred again..’s creative team used to develop USB002, and it reflects how global artists create today: by collaborating, experimenting, and sharing ideas across files, fragments, and timezones.

By making these creative assets public, anyone in the community can now download, edit, and use the content however they want to create new posters, videos, and more.

Sharing these creative files allows everyone who came to Fred’s shows to relive the energy of each night, and for people from the community who weren’t physically present to be brought into the experience.

Check out the drop

The Fred again.. x Dropbox folders drop is available now at https://bit.ly/4eGvDvm. This is a rare opportunity to see a creative team's working files and how Dropbox was instrumental in bringing them to life. We’re excited to give fans a glimpse into the process and the chance to connect with the creative work around his music in a more real and tangible way.

Teams today use lots of tools to collaborate, create content, and get work done. But when they try to use those tools separately, it can take a lot of time and unnecessary effort to supply the right context—let alone bring that work back into Dropbox and share it with collaborators.

Millions of people and hundreds of thousands of teams trust Dropbox as a place to store, organize, and share their work. By streamlining that work into ChatGPT, it becomes easier to bring the right context into your conversations and get answers that are more relevant, useful, and actionable.

To keep teams moving quickly, today we’re introducing three new Dropbox apps in ChatGPT: a Dropbox app, a Dropbox Dash app, and a Reclaim AI calendar app. Together, these apps make it easier to access your work, bring the right context into your AI conversations, and complete tasks directly in ChatGPT.

Whether you’re working with files, searching for answers across your tools, or coordinating time on your calendar, these three new apps help you move work forward without interrupting your flow.

Dropbox app in ChatGPT

With the Dropbox app in ChatGPT, you can easily access and preview your Dropbox files, save AI-generated content directly to Dropbox, and share links to your work without leaving ChatGPT. That means no more manually uploading files or copying and pasting between documents.

ChatGPT can even reference relevant files already stored in your Dropbox account to help generate drafts and answer questions, so you always have the context you need without switching tools. And because your Dropbox sharing permissions and access controls stay the same whether your work starts or ends in ChatGPT, you can trust that whatever you store in Dropbox will remain secure.

The Dropbox app in ChatGPT is available globally and can be used by Dropbox customers on any plan.

Dropbox Dash app in ChatGPT

Dropbox Dash already brings content from more than 30 workplace apps into one, secure place for your company knowledge. But with the Dropbox Dash app in ChatGPT, you can also bring that knowledge directly into your conversations in ChatGPT.

Now, when you ask a question in ChatGPT, it can quickly surface the right answer using context from across your connected work apps, with results that are more personalized to you. That’s because Dash has context about you, your content, and your team.

With this richer context, the Dropbox Dash app in ChatGPT helps users surface more helpful, relevant, and actionable answers without leaving your current chat. And because Dash, like Dropbox, respects existing permissions and access controls, your connected content is always secure.

The Dropbox Dash app in ChatGPT will be available in the coming weeks for existing Dash customers. New users can try a free 30-day trial.

Reclaim AI calendar app in ChatGPT

The Reclaim AI calendar app in ChatGPT makes it even easier to plan, manage, and optimize your calendar in Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook. Instead of the back-and-forth of manual scheduling, now you can just use the Reclaim AI calendar app in ChatGPT for help. You can add events, find time for meetings, resolve conflicts, analyze your productivity, search contacts, and even understand what your day looks like—all within your existing conversation.

The Reclaim AI calendar app in ChatGPT is available globally in English to customers who are using the latest version of the Reclaim AI calendar system.

To download the latest apps, visit the ChatGPT app directory.

To learn more, visit our Help Center.

"I've never seen that movie before." Zainab Azizi knew it the moment she read the logline: a Survivor-obsessed employee stranded on a deserted island with her terrible boss. She brought it to Sam Raimi—the director behind Evil Dead and Spider-Man—and spent the next six years getting it made.

The result is a gonzo survival comedy-thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien that opened January 30 and has already crossed $74 million worldwide. See it in a theater and you'll understand why: it’s hard to keep quiet while you’re watching. It was also, it turns out, hard to make. Getting there required coordinating shoots across Sydney and Thailand, managing hundreds of storyboards, and funneling a flood of production material into a Dropbox folder that became the film’s command center—one Azizi was still adding to the morning of this interview.

Have you ever had a terrible boss?
Hah. No, but I personally have felt like Linda [played by McAdams] in the office, where she's being told “Oh, you'll be in the next meeting” and…you’re not. And when you have a bunch of people snickering. I think that experience is almost universal.

And that's what drew you to this project.
The hook was like a wish fulfillment story. I love that Linda [McAdams] is such an underdog and relatable, but also the story is very fantastical at the same time. The writers are such great storytellers: the way they were able to provide all of these twists and turns in their 30-minute pitch just got me hooked. We knew there was so much to play with here.

The film keeps flipping whose side the audience is on. How early was that a conscious decision?
That was definitely one of Sam’s. It’s one of the reasons he loved the project so much. He wanted to make sure that audiences were with Linda, but then with Bradley [O'Brien], and then back to her, and then back to him. So by the time we get to the end reveal, we're confused about how we're supposed to feel. 

When I saw it, I found myself turning around to look at the audience's reactions. I can't remember the last time I did that in a theater. Was that the experience you were designing for?
One of the factors is that people love to go to the theaters to see something they've never seen before. And one sub-genre that I consider this film to be is an adventure—an exotic adventure. We could have done the whole movie on a blue screen, and that would have been cheaper and easier for everyone. But we chose Thailand specifically because it was such a postcard-beautiful island. Seeing it on the big screen…it's a character in itself. And then there’s the comedy element, and the scares. If you’re at home and glance at your phone, you miss the jump scare—and then it’s not scary. But when you're in a theater, we make all of our suspense scenes very calculated. It's a fun way to manipulate the audience.

You shot near Phuket in Thailand. What were the biggest practical consequences of that?
Shooting on an island is incredibly complex. For one, the island is beautiful, but we had to bring in a really big greens department because Sam wanted it even more lush and exotic. Sound becomes complex, too—making sure we were protective of the voices of the cast not getting hidden by the waves. On top of that, you have the heat. And the bugs.

With a shoot that complex, how do you keep a production from flying apart?
You have to have your hand in everything, but you need to have really strong department heads, and you have to really trust and rely on them. If you start to micromanage one department, that attention takes away from another. As a producer, countless decisions need to be made in two hours. But most of that is done in pre-production, so that when you're on set, you've got a plan.

Sam storyboarded the entire film. What did that mean for how everyone worked?
Sam worked with his storyboard artist Doug Leffler, who he's worked with for over 30 years. They produced hundreds and hundreds of storyboards. Then Sam had an editor make an animatic of the whole movie. That was our North Star: okay, this is what our director wants. But because making a movie takes a whole village, it's really just the starting point.

Where did Dropbox first enter the picture on this project?
It first entered the picture with those storyboards. Because we had so many of them, Dropbox was a great place to organize them, by folders, by scene.

What else ended up living in there as production got going?
Slowly but surely we'd have a lot of art in there. Like the boar [a creature Linda hunts on the island that becomes one of the film's most memorable set pieces]. We're designing this pig, and the first designs were all hand drawn, and then it went to 3D models. All of that was in there. 

And then the plane crash: our VFX supervisor gathered footage of plane crashes across cinema—from Castaway, to others, including one Russian film with an insane crash—he put it all in Dropbox. One day we had a production meeting just to focus on the crash, and we went on Dropbox in the conference room and reviewed every clip. We wanted to make sure our plane crash was different, fresh, original.

Somehow you made a plane crash…funny?
Right? And then even this morning—this morning—I used Dropbox on the movie, because our photographer on set had a lot of behind-the-scenes photographs, so it was all stored there.

How do you describe what Dropbox does for a production like this?
To me, Dropbox is organization. It helps you take all of these chaotic materials and organize them. It helps me become responsible with my to-do list and keeps me on track.

You never gave up on this project through six years and a pandemic. Why not?
Because I love it so much. I just thought so many people could relate.

For a behind the scenes look at the film, check out our Send Help x Dropbox Stack.

Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

We started Dropbox Ventures to support companies that are reimagining how work gets done—helping teams move faster, collaborate more effectively, and focus on what matters most. Today, we’re excited to share new investments that reflect our belief in AI’s ability to streamline complex workflows, along with updates from portfolio companies that have reached meaningful milestones.

New investments

Last summer, we announced investments in five startups working to push the boundaries of what’s possible across design, security, language models, and enterprise AI. Here are the latest additions to our portfolio.

Spellbook: Transforming how lawyers review and negotiate contracts
Spellbook is a generative AI assistant built specifically for transactional lawyers who draft, negotiate, and review business contracts. Integrated directly into Microsoft Word, Spellbook brings advanced drafting, review, and analysis tools into existing workflows, reducing friction when working on high-stakes documents. With its reference of extensive legal data, Spellbook enables instant clause suggestions, redlining, and compliance checks against firm-specific precedents and market standards—helping legal teams move faster without sacrificing quality. As active users ourselves, the Dropbox legal team has experienced Spellbook’s intuitive design and efficient contract analysis firsthand. We’re excited to partner with a team that shares our belief in using AI to drive real impact at work.

Momentic: AI-native automation for software testing
Momentic is the AI-native test automation platform that helps engineering teams validate web and mobile applications. By reducing the need for manual test creation and maintenance, Momentic enables teams to ship more frequently while maintaining product reliability as development velocity increases. Used by modern software teams to automatically verify real user flows, Momentic is becoming increasingly critical as organizations scale in the age of AI.

Kaya: Bringing predictability to construction supply chains
Kaya is an AI-powered operating system for mission-critical construction projects, unifying procurement, logistics, and asset lifecycle workflows into a single predictive platform. Construction teams often rely on fragmented tools like emails and spreadsheets to manage high-stakes supply chains, where delays can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. Kaya centralizes these workflows and uses AI to help automate coordination, surface risk, and support proactive decision-making. We’re excited to partner with Kaya as they bring AI-native workflows to one of the world’s largest and least digitized industries.

Portfolio updates

Lakera: Acquired by Check Point
Lakera has been acquired by Check Point, marking a significant milestone in enterprise AI security. Lakera has helped organizations—including Dropbox—protect against emerging AI-driven threats and safely adopt large language models. As part of Check Point, Lakera’s technology will help deliver end-to-end AI security at enterprise scale—underscoring the growing importance of securing AI systems as they become embedded in everyday work.

AugX Labs: Acquired by JWX
AugX Labs, a Dropbox Ventures portfolio company, has been acquired by JWX, a technology platform supporting modern media businesses. AugX Labs built Augie Studio, an AI-assisted creative platform that helps teams transform existing content into multi-format experiences more efficiently. As part of JWX, Augie’s technology will be integrated into JWX Studio, helping publishers unlock more value from their content while streamlining production workflows.

Bardeen: Launched WIQ
Bardeen, a Dropbox Ventures portfolio company, has launched WIQ, a workflow intelligence platform designed to help enterprises make more disciplined, data-driven decisions as they embed AI agents across their operations. By creating a factual baseline of how work actually happens across tools and systems, WIQ helps organizations identify where AI will have the greatest impact and measure results as they scale from pilots to production.

Looking ahead

These investments and milestones reflect the kind of innovation we’re proud to support at Dropbox Ventures. From legal drafting and software testing to construction and AI security, our portfolio companies are applying AI in practical ways to solve real-world problems. We’re excited to continue partnering with founders who are building tools that help teams work smarter today and shape the future of work.

To learn more about Dropbox Ventures or connect with our team, visit dropbox.com/ventures

2026 marks five years since we committed to Virtual First, our operating model where remote work is the primary experience for employees, and we prioritize in-person connection through regular gatherings. In that time, we’ve moved beyond the “what ifs” to a much clearer understanding of what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change. What hasn’t wavered is our core belief that Virtual First is a flexible model that allows us to continue learning and adapting, while shaping how we design products for a distributed world.

As we launch into 2026, we’re taking a close look at what we’ve learned over the past year to better understand how our culture drives employee satisfaction, which ultimately fuels our productivity and impact. Together, they form the foundation of how we build, operate, and evolve in a Virtual First world.

How we’re moving forward:

To build on these insights, we’re creating a Deep Work Index (DWI) to help us understand whether people have—or don’t have—the conditions they need for focused, uninterrupted work. The DWI brings together everything we’ve learned about meetings and autonomy into a single number. It includes metrics such as meeting load, focus time, and how tightly meetings are clustered, which all relate to how able people feel to engage in deep work.

Rather than asking managers to monitor dozens of inputs, the DWI distills work patterns into a single, testable signal related to deep work. While still in it’s early days, the DWI is being explored as a way to identify early signs of meeting creep, interruptions to focus, and calendar fragmentation. It will also assess whether these signals can ultimately inform practical actions like reducing meeting-heavy days, protecting longer focus blocks, or strengthening meeting norms and tools.

2. The goal is meetings that are fewer in number and stronger in purpose.

Yes, we need fewer meetings. But the ones we do have need to be effective. Thoughtful preparation, clear ownership, and support from AI tools make meetings more purposeful and leave more time for deep, focused work.

The number and quality of meetings at Dropbox are in a healthy place compared with external benchmarks. Dropbox employees consider about 70% of meetings effective, versus 28% among knowledge workers overall, and spend less time in meetings than peers at other companies.

Still, meaningful challenges remain. Nearly a third of our meetings are less effective than they could be, with our top challenges being lack of a defined purpose, ownership, or an organized agenda. When those basics are missing, employees report that discussions can drift, feel repetitive, or end without clear next steps. Employees also shared that meeting best practices matter even more in large, cross-functional settings, where friction is more visible.

While it’s encouraging that most meetings at Dropbox are considered effective, the ones that aren’t add up to millions of dollars in lost productivity each quarter. That’s why we’re applying the same operational rigor to our meetings as we do to every other major investment.

What we learned:

Our effort to reduce meetings worked. In 2025, we ran a Meeting Reduction pilot with developer teams that included practices like No Meeting Wednesdays, fewer recurring one-on-ones, and an async-first approach to alignment. The results were clear:

• 27% reduction in weekly meeting hours (1.8 hours)
• 20% fewer meetings per week
• 28% increase in coding time
• 80% of participants found the pilot effective, and 90% recommended scaling the guidance

We need a common way to talk about a meeting’s purpose. Through a design sprint focused on reimagining meetings, we identified a core gap: Teams often don’t have an easily understood way to describe the “why” behind a meeting. As a result, people often join meetings out of obligation rather than purpose, and live meetings remain the default. Giving meetings clear categories—like “decision jams,” “sync updates,” “connection circles,” or “AI briefings”—helps teams understand the goal of a meeting before it begins.

AI-generated meeting summaries save meaningful time. Through our Zoom AI Companion pilot, we found that users saved an average of 37 minutes of work per meeting by using AI-generated summaries and action items. Many found the tool easy to use and especially helpful for asynchronous collaboration, highlighting the growing role AI plays in the Virtual First experience.

How we’re moving forward:

Together, these insights have helped shape our company-wide Meeting Effectiveness initiative—an evidence-based framework that defines best practices by meeting type, stage, and participant role. We’re rolling out improvements in phases, giving teams tools like calendar and agenda reminders, Reclaim.ai scheduling enhancements, plus ongoing support to make sure these habits stick.

Our goal is to reduce the number of meetings that don’t deliver a strong return on investment, improve the ones that do, and protect important time for focused work.
 

We’re not waiting for the future of work. We’re building it together.

In 2025, one thing was clear: Our culture is the engine behind our success. We can see how intentional design improves both our satisfaction and productivity, and how our commitment to Virtual First continues to strengthen month by month, year over year.

We’ve learned that smarter collaboration beats more collaboration, that personal agency is the new productivity, and that well-designed gatherings create momentum long after teams return home. As we head into 2026, we’re continuing to improve how we work, the tools we use, and the cultural foundations that make Virtual First so successful. We’re actively building the future of work, and we’re just getting started.

Follow along at our Virtual First hub.