USCIS launches virtual assistant

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services launched a virtual assistant named “Emma” today on uscis.gov, allowing customers to quickly find accurate information. She answers questions in plain English and navigates users to relevant USCIS web pages.

She is named after Emma Lazarus, whose famous words are inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Emma was developed in response to a growing interest in self-help tools and to enhance our customer service. USCIS call centers currently receive many questions concerning general information requests that can be provided through the Web. Now Emma will help provide that information.

Although Emma can currently answer many questions our customers commonly ask, her knowledge base is still growing. As customers ask more questions, Emma gets smarter and can better assist future customers.

You can access Emma on a desktop or laptop. Soon, she’ll be expanding to mobile devices, and her Spanish language capabilities will be arriving early next year.

Check out Emma at USCIS.gov and click “Ask a Question” in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

For more information on USCIS and its programs, please visit uscis.gov or follow us on Twitter (@uscis), YouTube (/uscis), Facebook(/uscis), and the USCIS blog The Beacon.