By the Dropbox Team
Introduction
In 2020, as the pandemic shutdowns began and a new era of remote work emerged, we upgraded our prototype for virtual work in an attempt to combine the best of remote work experience with in-person work experience. But just as we redesigned our operating model, the tools that support this new way of working also need an upgrade.
More than ever, work has become scattered with content and communications splintered across different tools and applications. People are struggling to focus due to information overload and constant task-switching. According to a study conducted by Dropbox sponsored by The Economist, 42% of surveyed individuals said they typically don’t spend more than an hour on productive work without interruption. The study also estimates that the average knowledge worker loses more than five hundred hours annually due to distractions, with 157 hours alone lost to unproductive messaging from workplace chat applications – a primary factor in overall loss of focus.
At the same time, creative artificial intelligence is opening up a world of possibilities to help us automate routine tasks, increase our productivity, and free us up to focus on our most important work. In fact, the study also showed that 79% of people using automation tools – increasingly powered by AI – said they are more productive, while around 70% said they are more organized.
As we transitioned to our prototype for virtual work, we committed to living and breathing the benefits and challenges of distributed work. Along the way, we will share our experiences, refine the tools we build with advancements in AI, and act as a laboratory for distributed work 2.0.
Today, we are excited to present some improvements we have worked on to help facilitate modern work – including new ways to streamline your workflows, find what you need, and get the most out of your content in Dropbox.
Finding all your tools, apps, and content with AI-powered Dropbox Dash
Was it in an email? Or in a chat? Or in a shared document? Now that work spans hundreds of tabs and applications between desktop and browser, finding what you need can be daunting. That’s why we recently launched Dropbox Dash, an AI-powered comprehensive search that connects your tools, content, and apps in one search bar to help you find your content.
You can now download Dropbox Dash in open beta and it includes enhancements that make it easier to find the information you need. Over the past few months, we have improved it based on customer feedback and we are pleased to offer support for keyword search, so you don’t have to remember long titles. With semantic search, you can get more contextually relevant search results. Additionally, you can ask a question in Dropbox Dash and the creative AI will gather and summarize relevant information from your connected apps, files, and content to get you answers quickly.
In addition to these updates, Dropbox Dash continues to provide Collections, which are smart groups for your links that offer a quick way to save, organize, and retrieve URLs, a home page for accessing comprehensive search, viewing collections, getting shortcuts to recent work, and starting meetings, making it easy to navigate your day and return to your most important work.
Dropbox 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 would like faster ways to find content and take action on it, whether that involves sending a PDF for signature or tracking participating viewers so you can follow up. So, we have redesigned our web experience to ensure it’s easier than ever to complete all your most important tasks – without leaving Dropbox. The left navigation has been updated to streamline the features you need and includes an expandable folder tree for much quicker access to the content you need. There is a new toolbar that spans the browser page for quickly recording your screen, editing PDFs, uploading files, creating folders, obtaining signatures, or sending and tracking documents. The redesigned file previews provide a dynamic content preview, making it easier and faster to edit images, videos, and PDFs.
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The redesigned interface also offers a cleaner experience for customers to organize their content, collaborate with team members, and get work done smoothly.
The new experience is available to selected customers starting today and will be rolled out to current customers in the coming weeks and months. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/product-updates.
Get summaries and answers from your entire account using Dropbox AI
In June, we launched Dropbox AI, which uses creative artificial intelligence to answer questions and summarize large files – such as contracts or meeting recordings – in file previews. Today, we’re making it easier to get the information you need without manually searching for it.
Dropbox AI works with a variety of content, such as video and audio files with transcripts, across your entire Dropbox. Simply ask a question in the Dropbox search bar, and Dropbox AI will scan your content to extract answers and related files in seconds. Search results also come with a short summary for each file, allowing you to quickly find what you’re looking for.
Additionally, you can use natural language to search for content. For instance, you can say “Show me pictures from my photoshoot yesterday,” and Dropbox AI will display the relevant images. You can also toggle AI features on or off in your account settings, giving you more control over AI usage in Dropbox.
Dropbox AI is currently available in alpha, and we’re expanding it for more customers today, with wider availability coming soon. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/early-access.
Create, edit, review, and publish your videos using Dropbox Studio
Over the past 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 each year. To meet the increasing demand, we have launched new tools like Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay to make it easier to record, edit, and get feedback on videos. However, we learned that our customers need more – one place where they can create videos from start to finish. That’s why we’re introducing Dropbox Studio today, a video collaboration tool that lets you easily create, edit, review, approve, and publish high-quality videos.
Dropbox Studio supports the entire video process with: a central hub for users to access and easily start video projects. Editing capabilities like trimming and splitting content. AI-powered features that allow you to edit videos by modifying your script. For example, you can delete words and sentences from the text, and the corresponding frames will be removed. A feature to eliminate filler words like “um” and “ah” with one click. Time-stamped comments to streamline feedback resolution in one place. A way to publish videos directly to Facebook or Instagram.
Dropbox Studio will be available in the coming weeks to selected customers in the English beta. To learn more and join the waiting list, visit experience.dropbox.com/form/studio.
New Dropbox plans for your workflow
We are also launching comprehensive Dropbox subscriptions that come with all the tools you need to find and use your content from one place, so you can focus on building and growing your business. Dropbox Essentials helps freelancers save time, collaborate seamlessly, and build their business. It works with existing tools, so they can manage content from one place, whether they are editing PDF files, collecting e-signatures, or tracking analytics on shared documents. The Dropbox Essentials plan costs $22 per month for monthly subscribers and $18 per month for annual subscribers.
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Building a Dropbox Business for teams includes everything available in the Essentials plan, plus premium signature requests, pooled storage among team members, external sharing controls and reports, and an admin console for managing teams. Soon, teams will also be able to access features for sharing and tracking team content and aggregated visitor analytics. The cost of the Dropbox Business plan is $24 per month for monthly subscribers and $20 per month for annual subscribers.
Dropbox Business Plus is designed for larger teams looking for more storage, easier ways to collaborate remotely, and enhanced security features. In addition to what is included in the Business plan, Business Plus offers the ability to transfer up to 250 GB, a one-year version history and recovery, additional security and notification features, and more. The cost of the Dropbox Business Plus plan is $32 per month for monthly subscribers and $26 per month for annual subscribers.
These plans are available on Dropbox for new customers starting today. If you are already on one of our existing plans, you will automatically receive the new experience in the coming weeks and months at the same price. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/overview.
Announcing New Investments in Dropbox Ventures
In June, we announced the launch of Dropbox Ventures, a $50 million initiative to invest in startups building the next generation of AI applications and tools. We are now pleased to announce that we have invested in the companies Aug X Labs and LlamaIndex.
Dropbox started 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 vision of what entrepreneurs need to grow and make an impact. With Aug X Labs’ video creation tool and LlamaIndex’s data framework, we are excited to support the next generation of startups that are shaping modern work through AI.
To experience these new product trials, check out Dropbox Early Access, a new program offering customers the opportunity to test the latest tools that help you maximize your content.
Dropbox reserves the right to change the products or features described above. Purchasing our services should be based on the features currently available.
These are the new Dropbox plans available for new customers starting today. If you are already on one of our existing plans, you will automatically receive the new experience in the coming weeks and months at the same price. To learn more, visit dropbox.com/overview.
Source: https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/updated-tools-new-plans-and-web-redesign
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