How to use Answers for search
With Answers, you can ask natural-language questions about your files, and AI will scan your content to provide relevant answers. Instead of manually opening documents or scrolling through files, simply type a question in the search bar, and Answers will retrieve the most relevant information from your files.
To ask a question in the search bar:
- Log in to dropbox.com.
- Click the search bar at the top of the page.
- Type a question or command related to your files. For example:
- “What are my Q2 financial projects?”
- “Find my most recent marketing report.”
- “Summarize my meeting notes from last week.”
- Click Search.
Dropbox AI will analyze the text within your files and return an answer, along with links to the relevant documents.
Tips for getting better search results with Answers
To get the clearest and most relevant answers, keep these best practices in mind when creating your prompt:
- Use full sentences. Single-word searches like “folders” or “PDFs” are vague and won’t register as questions.
- Start queries with a question word. Starting your question with words like “Who”, “What”, “When”, Where”, “Why” or “How” provides valuable structure that helps the AI return more relevant results.
- Start your prompt with “Summarize” to distill the key points from files.
These are just a few ways to get more out of Answers. If your results aren’t quite right, try rephrasing your prompt using natural language or adding a question mark to clarify your intent.
Here are some examples of well-formulated questions:
- Who is mentioned in the notes?
- What are key performance indicators are we measuring?
- When is the launch date for this product?
- Where can I find my stakeholder’s contact info?
- Why did we implement this feature?
- How are we measuring successful conversion?
- Are there any budget constraints I should be aware of?
Feel free to tweak these prompts as needed!