In a recent announcement, Dropbox has unveiled its latest initiative called Dropbox Ventures, a venture fund with a budget of $50 million aimed at supporting startups operating in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Alongside providing financial support, the new venture arm of Dropbox aims to offer mentorship to help these startups develop AI-powered products that will shape the future of work, according to a press release from the company.
Venture capital firms have been progressively increasing their investments in AI over the past few years, with a particular surge in interest driven by the advancements in generative AI. In the last year alone, AI startups secured more than $52 billion in funding across over 3,300 deals, as reported by GlobalData.
Many of these funds come from corporate initiatives, exemplified by Salesforce Ventures, the venture capital division of Salesforce, which has plans to invest $500 million in startups focused on developing generative AI technologies. Workday has also recently allocated an additional $250 million to its existing venture capital fund specifically for backing AI and machine learning startups. Additionally, OpenAI, the organization behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, has raised a fund of $175 million to invest in AI startups.
As part of its commitment to advancing AI, Dropbox has introduced new AI-powered features into its flagship cloud storage product. One such feature is Dropbox Dash, a versatile search bar that can search through tools, content, and apps from various third-party platforms, including Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, and Notion. Dash is designed to assist users in finding and organizing different types of content, with the capability to improve and evolve through usage. In the future, Dash aims to utilize generative AI to provide answers and surface relevant content by drawing information from both personal and company data.
Additionally, Dash can create collections called Stacks for storing and retrieving URLs, enhancing organization and productivity. Stacks are accessible through the new Start Page, which also features shortcuts to recently accessed work within Dropbox and the Dash search bar.
Dropbox’s other AI innovation is Dropbox AI, which utilizes AI algorithms to summarize and extract information from files stored in Dropbox accounts. It can generate summaries from documents and provide video previews. Moreover, Dropbox AI functions in a chatbot-like manner, drawing insights from research papers, contracts, meeting recordings, and more, to answer user questions.
Currently, Dropbox AI is compatible with file previews, but there are plans to expand its functionality to encompass folders and entire Dropbox accounts.
Given the potential concerns about the accuracy of AI-generated summaries, Dropbox has emphasized its commitment to developing AI technologies that are fair, reliable, and privacy-conscious. While corporate commitments may not carry the same weight as independent audits, Dropbox has expressed its dedication to transparency and minimizing bias in their AI systems.
Dropbox Dash is currently available in English as a beta version for select customers. Dropbox AI for file previews is in an alpha phase and is accessible to all Dropbox Pro customers in the United States, with plans for a subsequent rollout to select Dropbox Teams.
