Canadian Immigration AI: 3 ways to save time in your immigration practice

We’ve all seen artificial intelligence – or AI – in the news recently, and it’s safe to say that it’s only starting to warm up. A big topic we love to talk about at Visto is what role AI will play in the Canadian immigration space and how it can help save time for you and your immigration practice.

In our opinion, immigration AI has barely scratched the surface of what we can do as immigration professionals. Here are 3 key ways we see immigration AI helping Canadian immigration professionals save time and grow their practices more than ever before.

Managing files

If you’re a Canadian immigration professional you know how much time it takes to manage files and applications for clients. Qualifying clients, answering questions, preparing document checklists, gathering documents, reviewing them, communicating back and forth – the list goes on and on.

We have no doubt that immigration AI will make this much easier in the future, especially since software like Visto already does this for temporary applications and LMIAs using software, automation and AI. But as we – and surely others – start implementing more AI into the platforms, it will only get better at cutting down the time you spend on each file.

Realistically, we don’t need humans to generate checklists, send updates or answer basic questions. These are all things that can be done with technology and AI – some platforms already do – and they’ll only get better so that professionals will only need to spend time on true value added services, like file reviews.

Drafting documents

The low hanging fruit for immigration AI is in drafting documents, especially since they can be one of the most time-consuming tasks of preparing immigration applications in Canada. In fact, many Canadian immigration professionals are probably already using tools like Chat GPT to help them draft cover letters, retainers and more.

We’re already seeing the benefits of AI with our users on Visto because we built a Submission Letter and Study Plan AI generator that draft custom Submission Letters and Study Plans in seconds – instead of hours.

Most immigration professionals I speak to say that drafting a Submission Letter for every application is a bit of a pain, or that it takes weeks to prepare and finalize a Study Plan with students because it usually means sending the student a template/guide, waiting a few days or weeks for the student to draft it, then a few days of going back and forth with edits until it is ready.

That’s why we created a Submission Letter and AI Study Plan generator on our immigration platform that drafts them in ~5 seconds.

I love showing this off in our demos, because I can see the “aha” moment go off in their head as they realize our platform is going to save them hours on these documents alone, and also help finalize the applications much earlier than doing it the old way (not to mention everything else the Visto platform does, like auto-generate checklists, pre-fill IRCC forms and much more).

As immigration AI gets better, we’ll have more and more tools at our disposal to make drafting documents a breeze!

AI for data collection and analysis

Another big reason and use case for immigration AI relates to data collection and analysis, because numbers can play a crucial role in Canadian immigration. The number of applications per year, approvals per year, rejection rates for certain visa types – these are all important data points that Immigration Canada (IRCC) shares and that we rely on as immigration professionals.

And as immigration AI gets better, it can start gathering key data points beyond what the government shares, provide feedback/recommendations for improvement and lead to even better applications being prepared and submitted.

Here’s what I mean.

When preparing immigration applications – especially to IRCC and especially for things like the study permit – sometimes the instructions or requirements can be subjective or unclear.

This means applicants or their representatives may have to do some guessing, and/or rely on what’s worked in the past, and/or rely on that random story you read on an old forum post from 2007 (don’t actually do this please!). Which is part of why you hear stories like “my uncle’s third cousin’s dog submitted this obscure extra document and got an approval, so you should include it too!”

It’s just one of the reasons we’re so excited about immigration AI.

Because as more immigration lawyers/consultants use it – and immigration platforms like Visto – to submit applications, we’ll be able to share key insights on what’s actually working and what isn’t.

We’ll be able to answer questions like:

• What Submission letter/Study Plan text gives you the highest chance of success?
  
• When you include document X, does it actually lead to a higher approval rating than not?
  
• How much riskier is it for a mature student to apply for a study permit?

And much more. Keep your eyes peeled, because I think data, AI and machine learning will play a huge role in Canadian immigration in the near future.

Conclusion

To conclude, there’s no doubt that immigration AI and tech will continue to improve and remove the not-so-exciting work that comes with the territory, allowing immigration professionals to focus on actual value-add activities, like sales, marketing, file review… or going home early to spend time with family/friends.

The way I see it, AI and better tech in Canadian immigration is going to help professionals prepare files much faster than usual which will result in higher quality applications and more time to focus on what really matters.

Time will tell what it all looks like.

And if you’re interested in leveraging tech and AI for your practice, make sure to check out our immigration platform here to start saving hours on applications. We’re just warming up too!