In this BSA series – “Why AI?” – enterprise software leaders explain in their own words how artificial intelligence (AI) is having a positive impact on individuals, businesses, and organizations worldwide. In this submission, Dropbox Chief Legal Officer Bart Volkmer writes about Dropbox Dash, a new AI-powered universal search engine that connects across popular workplace apps so that customers can be more productive and better organize their working lives.
1. Why AI?
At Dropbox, we’ve long believed in AI’s potential to unlock profoundly more productive ways of working. Thanks to recent advancements in AI and machine learning, we’re able to accelerate our mission of designing a more enlightened way of working by creating a new generation of products and features that help our customers find focus, be more productive, and better organize their working lives. As we embark on this era of AI, trust remains at the center of everything we do at Dropbox. We’ll continue to develop our AI products with an emphasis on security, privacy, transparency, and compliance.
2. Can you give an example?
These days, our work is often scattered across hundreds of tabs and apps, across our desktop and browser. And instead of one search bar, it feels like we have ten. Somehow we live in a world where it’s easier to search all of human knowledge than it is to search for our own company’s knowledge, or our own content. We wanted to address, first and foremost, this particular pain point that our customers are experiencing, to help them find what they need so they can focus. So, we launched Dropbox Dash in beta last year, an AI-powered universal search engine that connects across popular workplace apps. This allows customers to find, organize, and take action on their content and information, wherever it lives. And because Dash is powered by machine learning, it learns, evolves, and improves with every use. Customers can also query Dash, which uses generative AI to surface and summarize relevant information, to get the answers they need.
Personalized AI-powered universal search like Dropbox Dash solves a very real problem that common AI chatbots don’t. We now have the ability to fundamentally reimagine our working environments, from being able to work from anywhere, to using AI to offload more of our busy work to machines. This will give us the space to achieve more and improve our well-being at work.
3. Where can we learn more?
You can learn more about Dropbox Dash and try it out for free here, and learn about Dropbox’s other AI-powered features here.
To learn more about Dropbox’s commitment to customers when using AI, read our AI Principles outlining how we’re keeping security, privacy, and transparency top of mind as we develop new AI products and features. We’ve also launched a dedicated Dropbox Dash Trust Center to provide our customers the information and assurance they need to feel confident using our AI-powered products like Dropbox Dash.
About the author:
Bart Volkmer is Chief Legal Officer at Dropbox, where he leads the legal, risk and compliance, and public policy teams. Before Dropbox, he practiced law at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he counseled early-stage and established technology companies.
