(February 16, 2026) For decades, the United States has drawn some of the world’s brightest minds. Yet for many highly skilled immigrants, the journey to building a life and career in America is often slowed by paperwork, uncertainty, and months of waiting. Priyanka Kulkarni knows that reality intimately. After nearly a decade navigating the American visa system herself while building cutting edge artificial intelligence products at Microsoft, she decided it was time to redesign the process from the ground up.
In 2024, Priyanka founded Casium, a Seattle based AI driven immigration platform that aims to simplify and accelerate employment based visas. Backed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence Incubator and supported by five million dollars in seed funding from investors including Maverick Ventures, Casium is positioned at the intersection of technology, policy, and global talent mobility.
At its core, Casium is built on the belief that exceptional individuals should spend their time building and innovating, not deciphering bureaucratic mazes.
From curious student to AI leader
Born and raised in India, Priyanka grew up in a household that valued education. Speaking at an event, she reflected on her childhood with warmth and gratitude. “I grew up as this incredibly curious and ambitious girl in India and was blessed with parents who were defying all traditional norms to make sure we two sisters got the best education,” she said.
She once dreamed of becoming a lawyer, a career path that her family viewed with concern. Encouraged to pursue a more conventional professional track, she pivoted to science and technology. That pivot changed her life. She discovered a deep fascination for coding, machine learning, linguistics, and the way humans think.
Priyanka earned her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai and later completed a Master’s in Computational and Applied Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, and Master’s in Computer Science at the University of Washington. Armed with technical expertise and intellectual curiosity, she joined Microsoft on an H 1B visa. Over the next nine years, she rose through the ranks, eventually serving as a Principal Science Manager in Azure AI.
Her teams worked on translating advanced AI research into practical enterprise solutions. Yet even as she led high impact initiatives, she often found herself as the only woman in the room and almost always navigating immigration uncertainty in the background.
The frustration that sparked innovation
Living on temporary visas for nearly a decade shaped her entrepreneurial vision. She experienced firsthand how delays, opaque processes, and fragmented coordination between employers and law firms could stall careers. “The process can be so tangled that it often stalls career growth,” she has said about the employment based visa system.
Her turning point came in 2024 at the AI2 Incubator in Seattle. As she was applying for her own EB 1 visa, commonly referred to as the Einstein Visa, she encountered a three month ordeal involving multiple law firms and extensive back and forth communication. On her first day at the incubator, when asked what she wanted to build, her response was immediate and emphatic: “I want to build immigration technology.”
That moment marked the birth of Casium. “Everything I’ve done has culminated to this point,” she said, reflecting on how her experiences as an immigrant technologist and AI leader converged into a single mission.
The Casium Team | Photo Credit: Casium
What Casium does differently
Traditional employment based visa processes often rely on spreadsheets, email threads, and manual documentation handled through law firms. The timeline can stretch from three to six months, with limited transparency for employers and applicants.
Casium replaces this fragmented model with a unified, AI powered portal that allows companies to manage visa cases end to end. The platform supports visa categories such as H 1B, O 1, and EB 1A. From initial assessment and compliance review to petition drafting and filing, the system automates documentation workflows and integrates built in error detection.
One of Casium’s standout features is its AI error detection capability, which automatically identifies inconsistencies or missing information in documentation. This reduces the risk of human oversight and increases reliability. What traditionally takes months can now be completed in under ten business days.
Since its launch in April 2024, Casium has assisted hundreds of candidates with assessments, compliance reviews, and filings, maintaining a notably high approval rate. The company offers free initial assessments and charges a flat filing fee based on visa type, with a subscription model currently in development to better serve growing companies.
The platform is also designed to adapt quickly to policy changes. For example, if new regulatory proposals or fee structures emerge, employers can adjust their approach within the system without starting from scratch. This responsiveness is particularly valuable in an immigration landscape that can shift with political cycles.
A human AI collaboration
Despite its technological foundation, Casium is not a replacement for legal expertise. Its team includes experienced attorneys, builders, and innovators who understand the stakes involved. The company describes itself as rooted in entrepreneurship and shaped by people who were once hindered by the same complexities they now help others overcome.
Priyanka emphasizes that Casium is a human AI collaboration system. Technology handles repetitive, data heavy tasks while experts ensure compliance, strategy, and personalized guidance. The result is a process that is faster, more transparent, and easier to navigate.
For venture capital firms, startups, and global enterprises seeking top tier talent, this model offers a competitive advantage. In industries where speed to hire can determine market success, shaving months off visa timelines can make a meaningful difference.
Championing women in AI
Priyanka Kulkarni’s story also intersects with a broader conversation about gender representation in technology. She often speaks candidly about the statistics. Around 22 percent of AI professionals are women, a modest improvement over a decade ago. Yet representation drops sharply at higher levels, with only about 12 percent of C suite and board roles in AI held by women.
She has highlighted how this imbalance affects innovation and product design. Fewer women in research roles can lead to biased systems and fewer role models for the next generation.
Her call to action is twofold. First, she encourages women to experiment with and adopt AI tools, to move from users to creators. Second, she advocates for greater investment in women led startups. More inclusive funding policies and stronger board representation, she argues, are essential to building a truly innovative ecosystem.
Giving back and looking ahead
Beyond Casium, Priyanka mentors high school students through the Big Brothers Big Sisters MentorU program. She guides them in identifying their strengths and charting meaningful career paths, reflecting her belief in empowerment through education and opportunity.
Casium’s ambitions extend beyond the United States. The company plans to expand into other countries’ work visa systems, applying its AI driven framework to streamline global mobility more broadly. Future iterations may include predictive tools that anticipate potential visa rejections and offer corrective guidance before petitions are filed.
Priyanka’s journey from a curious girl in India to a technology founder in Seattle illustrates how personal challenges can inspire systemic solutions. By digitizing and modernizing one of the most complex bureaucratic systems in the world, she is helping founders, researchers, and specialized professionals focus on what they do best.
- Follow Priyanka Kulkarni on LinkedIn
