Earlier this year, Dropbox announced a series of new AI-driven search tools, which are currently available in preview for paid customers. It's an intriguing proposition - simply start typing to ask questions about all the files you've stored in your cloud storage container over the years. However, Dropbox customers realized there was a catch. To test Dropbox's artificial intelligence, you must allow OpenAI access to your files. When Dropbox unveiled its AI preview, there was no mention of OpenAI. In fact, there was no discussion of any third-party AI company. You could use features like Dropbox Dash to ask questions about your files or find projects even if you don't remember the file names. From the wording, it seemed like Dropbox had internally built an AI model to scan your files. Now we know that's not the case. Users discovered a new third-party AI switch in the Dropbox settings. This feature allows Dropbox's AI partners to access your files, which is necessary to integrate them with the models. Dropbox states that it only works with companies it has reviewed - currently, OpenAI is the only company in this program. The partners are also prohibited from using your data to train new models and can only retain the data for 30 days. Naturally, this setting has raised concerns among Dropbox users. Here is Dropbox's full statement on the matter: "The third-party AI switch is only visible to eligible customers who have it turned on and can see our new AI features and capabilities, such as Dropbox AI. It does not allow customers to use these features without their knowledge. Any use of third-party AI features will disclose the third party's usage and link to the settings they can manage. The file is only sent to the third party to generate answers after the customer sees the third-party AI transparency banner and chooses to continue asking questions about the file. Our customers still have control over when and how to use these features." The company claims that this switch is only enabled when you or someone in your team is participating in the alpha testing of Dropbox AI. However, we can confirm that this is not true. Ars Technica reported that several employees had the AI switch enabled without their knowledge. The same happened to us - we saw the data sharing switch enabled without ever seeking AI functionality in Dropbox. If you want to check, you must log in to the Dropbox website and go to the rightmost tab in the settings. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston made a statement, stating that this switch does not passively send any data to OpenAI. We hope this is more true than the promise that the feature won't be enabled without using Dropbox AI. In the past year, the popularity of artificial intelligence has skyrocketed, but companies still need to exercise restraint. After all, large language models like ChatGPT excel because they ingest a vast amount of data. OpenAI has faced lawsuits for using copyrighted content to train its models.