As the global citizens struggle with immigration-related paperwork, this startup is taking the help of AI to streamline the process, aiming to serve nearly 500,000 H-1B applicants and many more visa holders.
Y Combinator-backed startup Gale claims to assist immigrants with their H-1B visa processing using AI. All an employer needs to do is fill out a form, and Gale takes care of the rest with licensed attorneys ensuring accuracy at every step.
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Founders Rahul Gudise, Haokun Qin, and Rishabh Sambare have talked to employers and noted the difficulties in the process of dealing with immigration lawyers.
Responses from professionals often tend to be slow. It is also hard to obtain help on complex compliance requirements post visa approval. Knowledge transfer and communication is often done via email or janky web forms, questionnaires, and document checklists can be confusing.
By using AI, Gale manages to speed up the process and make it easier. With AI-powered document intake that auto-fills your application, the form-filling aspect is faster. The platform also provides easy-to-follow tooltips and comprehensive FAQs for first-timers.
Gale facilitates automated H-1B compliance for even after visa approval, and provides a quick turnaround time for legal questions. An experienced immigration lawyer handles and reviews each individual case with the same level of scrutiny as any law firm, the startup claims.
While Gale has begun with assisting H-1B applicants, they are also planning to expand to other U.S.-based immigration processes, offering to help both consumers and businesses with other types of visas such as O-1s, Fs, Ks and TNs.
The founders believe that the U.S. immigration system isn’t really built for the 21st century, and they aim to change that by using a mix of AI and professionals in the loop.
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The founders have been working on projects together since middle school and later, pursued degrees at the University of Waterloo. While working at companies like Nvidia and Tesla previously, they experienced the inefficiencies of the immigration process firsthand which made them come with the idea for Gale.
H1-B visas have, of late, been a topic of much concern considering President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration. It remains to be known how that would affect startups like Gale with immigration assistance becoming the need of the hour.