One tech company is positioning itself to assist international students with Canadian visa applications by integrating ChatGPT technology into the process.
Toronto-headquartered Visto.ai is hoping to demystify the process and to create “coherent narratives that clear explain why they want to come to Canada and what they plan to pursue in school”.
CEO and immigration lawyer, Josh Schachnow, is familiar with the country’s immigration process and attests to the complicated process through his experience directing clients.
“Applying for a student visa is challenging for international students because there are so many different requirements that need to be completed,” Schachnow said.
Prospective students who use the program can create study plans from scratch or use the AI tool, which can generate a draft “within about 10 seconds.” The platform is designed for use by the international students themselves, as well as immigration lawyers and consultants who work with these students to create visa applications.
“There are so many different requirements that need to be completed”
“Depending on the region the student is applying from, it’s most common that aspiring students are working with a professional (immigration lawyer, consultant, etc.) to prepare their application before submitting it to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and our platform makes the process much quicker and easier for both parties – the student and the professional,” Schachnow explained.
The platform has gone through several rounds of testing to ensure the accuracy of the tool. An internal team of Visto engineers, as well as “a group of former international students who have been through the process before and immigration professionals who reviewed the output of the platform” have contributed to feedback that preceded the public launch.
“The most consistent piece of feedback we’ve got from our beta testers is around the lines of ‘I wish this existed when I was going through the process’, which comes from our beta testers who are now in Canada and were able to compare Visto to doing it ‘the old way’,” Schachnow said.
The company has also launched the Visto Study app which it says contributes to Visto.ai’s mission to “reduce the arcane – and often confusing – immigration red tape”.
