Dropbox Dash AMA: November 2023

[Amy]

Have you had a chance to try out Dropbox Dash, (our new AI-powered universal search tool) yet?

You can learn all about it here, and, if you have questions about it, you’re in the right place! 

Dropbox Dash

Usually when you have a question, we’d suggest asking Dash, but now you can ask the creators of Dash! We have Geoff Hulten, VP of Engineering for New Initiatives here to answer your questions this week, the 13th - 17th of November. And this is an AMA, so ask us anything about Dropbox Dash!

If you have an questions, big or small, we can make sure those get answered when the Dash team are here next week! Drop them in the comments and we’ll be in touch soon! 

So, ask us anything when it comes to Dash below! Are there any new features you want to see, things you’d like changed, or are you just curious about how Dash works? Let us know! 

[KevinLeeC]

Dash is fabulous. I love being able to search across platforms and get the answers in one place.

Two requests -- one small and one (I think) a bit larger.

When I click on a result, I'd like the Dash window to stay open. Often I have several similar documents and I need to decide which is best for my purpose. Having to re-open Dash each time slows me down a bit.

Also, is there any chance of adding OCR to read .pdfs which were scans or produced by a .pdf printer driver that creates images rather than actual text?

[Mark]

So, can I ask a few? Some may appear obvious but I suppose that's what I'm looking for here!

• Why do I need Dash? What does it do? Whats the advantages of it. I don't want 'rock star DJ movie director' rubbish. I want how it helps ME as a person/teacher that has all his docs within the Dropbox eco system 
• Whats the safety and security on the system in an idiots guide? For example are you doing a Google on my data and selling it? 
• How do I know that the fact its AI-driven is in my interests and most importantly safe? I get this is a commercial product for you, but, as a paying user what do I get out of it? How are you protecting MY data with it? 
• Is it here to stay? Why should we, as users, invest time in this when you have pulled some of the best things I used before as they were 'beta' (RIP Carousel and Mailbox). 

[s4337_Alex]

Amazing! I am still learning how to use Dash, but I see the potential for improved productivity. If you were to see my Dropbox (which, of course, I would not allow), you would notice cluttered files and folders, as well as duplicated photos and documents. This is due to my human weakness, which, unfortunately, I enjoy and embrace. 😄 Dash helps me search through files, emails, and any other data I provide to this amazing tool. However, it cannot help me find where I put my socks and shirts. 🙂

I have two questions. First, what is the difference between Dropbox AI and Dash? Do they use the same AI technology? Second, could you please provide me with a cheat sheet for using Dash? Or is Dash already smart enough that I don't need one? Third (apologies for the earlier lie), when using Dash in Microsoft Edge, my Bitdefender flagged something funny. It says "msedge.exe attempted to establish a connection relying on an expired certificate to bzib.nelreports.net...(and so on)". Fourth (sorry for another desperate lie in the beginning), is there a plan to update Dropbox Paper with AI technology?

[vkevinruss]

I love Dropbox Paper. One of the main things I use it for is to bookmark and annotate tech-related articles and reference material. It's great because it supports three powerful tools: nested folders, markup pages, and search. I can nest folders to my hearts content, fill them with useful markup, and instantly find whatever I'm looking for. What could be better?

Dash looks great, and I was excited to see the Stacks feature for quick bookmarking and bookmark organization. Sometimes you just want to throw a bookmark in a folder and be done with it. Unfortunately, I quickly found that it's not usable for me, because the hierarchy is simply too limited. 

My question is: Why overcomplicate and constrict  a bookmarking system with "stacks", a single level of "sections", and "items"? Why not just allow unlimited nested "stacks" and "items"? I had the same issue with Microsoft OneNote, and that's why I started using Paper to begin with. I'd love to see you get rid of "sections" and allow the unlimited nesting of "stacks". I know it would involve a deeper consideration of UI design concerns, but you nailed it with Paper, and I know you can do the same with Stacks.

Thanks for listening!

[RRanderson]

Dash has a lot of potential, excited to see where it goes! 

1. Any roadmap/timeline for additional integrations? I know we all use different productivity combos but until more of them are covered, Dash usefulness is limited. ClickUp is the big one on my end 🙂

2. There's some confusion between App Connections and what is searchable in Dash. For example, there's no app connection for ClickUp but it does appear under Settings/Favorites as an option. If I do search in ClickUp from the Dash bar, results are extremely limited, seems to show a random selection of tasks. Where is Dash getting this data from? And what is the difference between apps with connections and apps listed as optional Favorites in Settings?

3. Any plans to allow opening local files or locations rather than in browser? When using the Dash app and searching my Dropbox, I definitely want to go to the file in Finder not in browser.

Thanks!

[Joel B.20]

Can you speak to our right to be forgotten with Dash? It connects to lots of information about me and of course I want to feel like that content — and the meta data — is protected. But my question is about when I stop using Dash. How deleted is all of that information about me?

[johngto455]

I just installed the beta of Dash, and the concept is great what you're trying to achieve with this application is something that will be usable however being that this is a beta I think that The definition of what this app is supposed to do should be better defined. is it a search PC and cloud storage app or is it an AI app that you can ask anything? Performing both is very broad based on the Accompanying Documentation and help files. Maybe I missed some information before I started installing the application. The one thing that I will say is having any application change user settings IE new browser tab to me is unacceptable and I usually uninstall any app that makes changes like that. just my $0.02

[ghulten]

---

@KevinLeeC wrote:

Dash is fabulous. I love being able to search across platforms and get the answers in one place.

Two requests -- one small and one (I think) a bit larger.

When I click on a result, I'd like the Dash window to stay open. Often I have several similar documents and I need to decide which is best for my purpose. Having to re-open Dash each time slows me down a bit.

Also, is there any chance of adding OCR to read .pdfs which were scans or produced by a .pdf printer driver that creates images rather than actual text?

---

Thanks, @KevinLeeC ! Great questions.

I personally totally agree with the reopening dash slows me down sentiment. Working on it.

For the PDF and OCR comment that's something we're actively working on too. Don't know exactly how it will show up in the product, but keep an eye out.

Thanks again for the question,

Geoff

[ghulten]

---

@Mark wrote:

So, can I ask a few? Some may appear obvious but I suppose that's what I'm looking for here!

• Why do I need Dash? What does it do? Whats the advantages of it. I don't want 'rock star DJ movie director' rubbish. I want how it helps ME as a person/teacher that has all his docs within the Dropbox eco system 
• Whats the safety and security on the system in an idiots guide? For example are you doing a Google on my data and selling it? 
• How do I know that the fact its AI-driven is in my interests and most importantly safe? I get this is a commercial product for you, but, as a paying user what do I get out of it? How are you protecting MY data with it? 
• Is it here to stay? Why should we, as users, invest time in this when you have pulled some of the best things I used before as they were 'beta' (RIP Carousel and Mailbox). 

---

Hello, @Mark. If you have all your docs nicely organized in Dropbox you may find less value from the 'universal search and organization' in Dash. These features help people who have content scattered across many cloud services (like I do in my work).

But that said, Dash will help you get access to helpful AI, even if all your data is organized.

One example is 'semantic search' which allows you to express what you are looking for in natural language (as opposed to legacy search which requires a keyword). I personally struggle remembering exact names and phrases, so this help me a LOT.

Another example is the ability to ask questions of your data. This has been demoed a lot with various modern ai tools (like chat gpt) but dash makes it easy to ask questions of your data. So if you need to, for example, find the name of a student's parent, you can ask dash and it will try to find the name directly (vs finding the file where all the names are listed).

Another thing that dash is good at is organizing your work with stacks. You can create a stack related to a project you are working on, and dash will recommend other relevant content that may help you with that work. You can save the stack and come back to it any time. You can also share it with coworkers so you're all working on the same thing with the same context.

Basically, we are trying to take the amazing advancements in modern AI and turn them into useful tools (vs tinker toys) over time we will connect more and more into Dash.

WRT data safety - We have published our AI principles https://www.dropbox.com/ai-principles. And we treat your data in Dash with the same respect we treat your data in dropbox.

I'm here to stay too. I was a dropbox user for a decade before I joined the company. I'm very committed to making Dash a success. I'll do my best! Please come check it out and let us know what you think.