Dropbox to offer its genAI service Dash for download
Cloud storage provider Dropbox has a generative AI (genAI) service called Dash that users will soon be able to download and install.
“We plan to launch a self-serve version of Dash,” Dropbox CEO Drew Houston said during an earnings call earlier this month. “Basically, a version anyone can download and start using similar to what we did with Dropbox 1.0.”
Dash, which will be available for download later this year, includes document search, summarization, AI chatbots, and writing assistance for content in its cloud and third-party workflow services.
“You can think of Dash as both a standalone product that allows us to reach a new audience of people beyond our file-syncing audience. And it’s also the AI layer across Dropbox FSS (file sync and share) for our existing customers,” Houston said.
Dropbox, which started in 2008, made its name in file sharing and storage. Dash is positioned as independent from the company’s mainstream file-storage offerings, though customers can buy a bundle with both offerings.
“It’ll be a separate product and separate subscription,” Houston said.
Dash creates intelligence from documents users store with Dropbox. For example, users will be able to search for rich media files within the storage service.
“We’re seeing growing adoption of Dash Chat for answering questions, summarizing long documents, and providing draft writing assistance,” Houston said.
Additionally, the service plugs into other workflow tools such as Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, and Atlassian, from which it can analyze and locate documents, communications, records, reports, and contacts.
Dropbox is hoping the self-service model will attract more users to the company’s other wares. It did not offer information about pricing or target audience.
Since its inception, the storage provider has tried to convert free users to paid users. Virtually every subscriber started out as a free user in some form, executives said.
Dropbox has 700 million users, of which 18 million were paid users in 2024. (That figure is up from 15 million in 2020.)
Current file sync and share prices range from $7 to $199, depending on usage. Prices for business users start at $18.
Executives dropped hints that there could be some kind of free Dash service, with Dropbox hoping to convert those users to paid subscribers.
“Dash is a good example of providing a lot of new value to our existing free users beyond files, right? Because all of those free users have cloud content as well and are a good fit for Dash,” Houston said.