Introducing new tools for the next generation of knowledge work
Published on October 10, 2023
Dropbox Dash is now in open beta, plus AI enhancements, a redesigned web experience with a new plan lineup, an all-in-one video collaboration Studio, and our first Venture partners
In 2020, as the pandemic lockdown ushered in a new era of remote work, we upgraded to a Virtual First model in an effort to combine the best of the remote and in-person work experience. But just as we redesigned our operating model, the tools that power this new way of working need an upgrade, too.
More than ever, work is fragmented with content and communication scattered across different tools and apps. People struggle to focus because of information overload and near-constant switching between tasks. According to a new Dropbox-sponsored study conducted by Economist Impact, 42% of people surveyed said they typically don’t spend more than an hour on productive work without interruption. The study also estimates the average knowledge worker loses more than five hundred hours to distraction each year, with 157 hours alone lost to unproductive messages from workplace chat apps—the biggest driver of lost focus overall.
At the same time, generative AI is opening up a world of possibilities to help us automate routine tasks, be more productive, and free us up to do our most important work. In fact, the study also showed that of people who report using automation tools—which are increasingly powered by AI—79% said they’re more productive, while nearly 70% said they’re more organized.
When we moved to our Virtual First model, we committed to living and breathing the benefits and challenges of distributed work. Along the way, we’ll be sharing our learnings, improving the tools we build with advancements in AI, and operating as a lab for distributed work 2.0.
Today, we’re excited to introduce some of the enhancements we’ve been working on to help make modern work easier—including new ways to simplify your workflows, find what you need, and get the most out of your content in Dropbox.
Search all your tools, apps, and content with AI-powered Dropbox Dash
Was it in an email? A chat thread? A shared doc? Now that work spans hundreds of tabs and apps between your desktop and browser, it‘s painstaking to find what you need. That’s why we recently introduced Dropbox Dash, AI-powered universal search that connects your tools, content, and apps in a single search bar to help you locate your content.
Dash is now available to download in open beta and includes enhancements that make it easier to find the information you need. Over the past few months, we’ve iterated based on customer feedback and are excited to introduce support for search by keywords, so you don’t have to remember long titles. And with semantic search, you can get more contextually relevant search results. Plus, you can ask Dash a question and it will use generative AI to gather and summarize relevant info from your connected apps, files, and content to get you answers, fast.
Along with these updates, Dash continues to offer Stacks, smart collections for your links that offer a quick way to save, organize, and retrieve URLs, and a start page to access universal search, view Stacks, get shortcuts to recent work, and start meetings, making it easier to navigate your day and get back to your most important work.
Dash is currently available in English only. To learn more about the product and global availability, visit dropbox.com/dash.
Introducing a redesigned web experience
We’ve heard how you want faster ways to find and take action on content, whether that’s sending a PDF for signature or tracking engaged viewers so you can follow up. So, we’ve redesigned our web experience to ensure it is easier than ever to complete all your most important tasks—without ever leaving Dropbox.
- An updated left navigation streamlines the features you need and includes an expandable folder tree to get to the content you need even more quickly
- A new action bar sits across your browser page to let you quickly record your screen, edit PDFs, upload files, create folders, get signatures, or send and track documents
- Redesigned file previews offer dynamic content previews, making it easier to edit images, videos, and PDFs more quickly
The redesign also offers a cleaner experience for customers to organize their content, collaborate with team members, and get work done seamlessly.
The new experience is available to select customers starting today and will roll out to existing customers in the coming weeks and months. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/product-updates.
Get summaries and answers from your entire account with Dropbox AI
In June, we introduced Dropbox AI, which uses generative AI to answer questions and summarize large files—like contracts or meeting recordings—in file previews. Today, we’re making it even easier to get the information you need without manually searching for it.
Dropbox AI works with a variety of content, like video and audio files with transcripts, across your entire Dropbox. Just ask a question in the Dropbox search bar, and Dropbox AI will sift through your content to pull up answers and relevant files within seconds. Search results also come with a short summary of each file, so you can find what you’re looking for faster.
Plus, you can use natural language to search content. For example, you can say “show me photos from my photoshoot yesterday,” and Dropbox AI will pull up the relevant images. And, you can turn AI features on or off in your account settings, giving you more control over your use of AI in Dropbox.
Dropbox AI is currently in alpha, and we’re expanding to more customers today, with broader availability coming soon. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/early-access.
Create, edit, review, and publish your videos with Dropbox Studio
Over the last few years, video has emerged as one of the fastest-growing content types on our platform with over 1.5 billion videos uploaded to Dropbox every year. To address the growing demand, we introduced new tools like Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay to make it easier to record, edit, and get feedback on videos. But we've learned our customers need even more—a single place where they can take videos from start to finish. So today, we're introducing Dropbox Studio, a video collaboration tool that lets you seamlessly create, edit, review, approve, and publish high-quality videos.
Dropbox Studio supports the entire video process with:
- A centralized page for users to conveniently access and kick off video projects
- Editing capabilities like trimming and splitting content
- AI-powered features that let you edit videos by modifying your transcript. For example, you can delete words and sentences in the transcript, then corresponding frames will be removed.
- A feature to easily remove filler words like “um” and “ah” with just one click
- Time-stamped comments to make it simpler to resolve feedback in one place
- A way to post videos directly to Facebook or Instagram
Dropbox Studio will be available in the coming weeks to select customers in alpha in English. To learn more and join the waitlist, visit experience.dropbox.com/form/studio.
New Dropbox plans for your workflows
We’re also launching new one-stop-shop Dropbox subscriptions that come with all the tools you need to find and use your content from a single place, so you can focus on building and growing your business.
- Dropbox Essentials helps self-employed professionals save time, collaborate seamlessly, and build a business. It works with existing tools, so they can manage content from one place, whether they’re editing PDFs, collecting eSignatures, or tracking analytics on shared documents.
- The Dropbox Essentials plan is $22/month per user for monthly subscribers; $18/month per user for annual subscribers
- Dropbox Business is built for teams and includes everything in the Essentials plan along with branded signature requests, pooled storage among team members, external sharing controls and reporting, and an admin console to manage teams. Soon, teams will also have access to share and track team content features and aggregated visitor analytics.**
- The Dropbox Business plan is $24/month per user for monthly subscribers; $20/month per user for annual subscribers
- Dropbox Business Plus is for larger teams looking for more storage, easier ways to collaborate remotely, and enhanced security features. In addition to what’s included in the Business plan, Business Plus offers the ability to transfer up to 250GB, one year of version history and recovery, added security and notification features, and more.
- The Dropbox Business Plus plan is $32/month per user for monthly subscribers; $26/month per user for annual subscribers
**The products or features described above may not be released yet. The decision to purchase our services should be made based on features that are currently available.
- The Dropbox Business Plus plan is $32/month per user for monthly subscribers; $26/month per user for annual subscribers
These Dropbox plans are available to new customers starting today. If you’re already on one of our existing plans, you’ll automatically get the new experience in the coming weeks and months at the same price. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/overview.
Announcing new Dropbox Ventures investments
In June, we announced the launch of Dropbox Ventures, a $50 million initiative to invest in startups that are building the next generation of AI-powered apps and tools. And now, we’re excited to announce that we’ve invested in Aug X Labs and LlamaIndex.
Dropbox began as an early-stage startup with a simple idea that grew into a service used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. As a founder-led company, we have a unique perspective on what startups need to grow and make an impact. With Aug X Labs’ video creation tool and LlamaIndex’s data framework, we’re excited to support the next generation of startups that are shaping modern work through AI.
To try these new product experiences, check out Dropbox Early Access, a new program that offers customers the chance to test our latest tools that help you get the most out of your content.
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