Dropbox has announced plans to acquire object storage provider Tigris Data Inc. and is introducing “DBX Agent Cloud,” a storage offering for AI applications. At the same time, the company is adding AI features to its core product, which Dropbox says have already been rolled out to more than 70,000 teams.
Dropbox, Inc. (NASDAQ: DBX) announced on November 5, 2026, in San Francisco that it intends to acquire Tigris Data Inc. According to the company, Tigris operates a globally distributed, S3-compatible object storage platform built for AI workloads. The announcement gives no details on the purchase price, timeline, or terms of the transaction. Alongside the planned acquisition, Dropbox is introducing DBX Agent Cloud and announcing AI features for its core product.
Object storage for AI applications and agents
According to Dropbox, DBX Agent Cloud is a storage and data layer for companies and developers building AI applications and agents. The offering starts with standalone, S3-compatible object storage that customers can purchase independently of other Dropbox products. It can be used with common tools and with applications built for Amazon S3.
Background: AI applications access training datasets, model artifacts, images, and videos that are often spread across different clouds and compute providers. Dropbox wants to offer a portable data foundation for this. According to the company, Tigris enables cross-cloud data access without vendor lock-in and without egress fees.
File systems and content processing planned
As a next step, Dropbox plans to add file system and content processing capabilities. Content processing is meant to convert documents, images, audio, and video files into inputs for AI models. File system capabilities are intended to give applications and agents a persistent place to manage files and to continue work across tasks and sessions.
Tigris co-founder and CEO Ovais Tariq points to Dropbox’s experience: the company has operated storage infrastructure at scale for nearly two decades. Combining that with the Tigris product would help handle larger workloads without giving up the focus on reliability and developer experience. Dropbox Co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi says the value of AI depends on the content and context it can work with. Customers, he says, should decide for themselves how they use AI and keep control over their content.
“The value of AI depends on the content and context it can work with,” said Ashraf Alkarmi, co-CEO of Dropbox. “We’re bringing AI to the work people already keep in Dropbox and extending our storage expertise to companies building AI applications. Across both, our goal is to give customers the freedom to choose how they use AI while keeping control of the content they depend on.”
“AI is driving storage demand at a scale this industry has not seen before. Meeting it takes massive scale and a conviction we share with Dropbox: that customers should have the flexibility to run their compute wherever it serves them best, with a product built for developers and agents alike,” said Ovais Tariq, co-founder and CEO of Tigris. “Dropbox brings nearly two decades of operating storage at that scale. We bring the developer-focused product our customers depend on. Together we would meet that demand across the industry, and deliver the capabilities that come next, starting with filesystem and content processing.”
AI features in the core product
In the core product, users are to describe in natural language what they want to achieve. Dropbox then identifies relevant content, proposes a plan, and carries out supported actions after approval. Examples cited include summarizing folders, comparing versions, creating documents, editing PDFs and images, transcribing recordings, and organizing or renaming files, including as a multi-step process from a single request.
According to the company, Dropbox shows a proposal for approval before any change and works within existing permissions. Executed actions are logged, and customers can review changes and undo supported actions.
Model choice and connections to external AI tools
During a session, customers can switch between supported AI models without losing the context of their work. Dropbox files can also be worked on in supported AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Muse without uploading them each time. Results are saved in Dropbox and can be shared and reviewed through existing workflows.
Availability
According to Dropbox, the new features are already in use by more than 70,000 teams. The first phase targets eligible Standard and Advanced teams in the US, the UK, and Australia and is initially available in English. Broader availability is planned for 2027. The announcement does not say when DBX Agent Cloud will be offered in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de