Pranav Dixit

Read the memos Google, Apple, Microsoft, and ServiceNow sent visa workers warning them not to travel

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The world’s largest technology companies are scrambling to manage a growing crisis affecting thousands of their employees on work visas, as new social media screening requirements trigger delays at US embassies and consulates worldwide.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, and ServiceNow have all sent advisories to visa-holding employees in recent days, warning them against international travel and describing appointment delays stretching up to a year.

The memos, sent by immigration law firms representing these companies or by their internal legal teams, paint a picture of mounting uncertainty for foreign workers who form a critical part of the tech industry’s workforce.

The warnings come as American embassies have postponed routine visa stamping appointments, leaving some employees already abroad unable to return to work in the US for extended periods.

For H-1B holders, the primary work visa used by tech companies, the situation creates a particularly difficult bind. If their visa stamp expires and they travel abroad, they must obtain a new stamp at a consulate before re-entering the US. With appointments now being rescheduled months into the future, what would typically be a routine trip home has become a potential career disruption lasting up to a year.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Department of State told Business Insider it was now conducting “online presence reviews for applicants.” The department said it may move appointments as resources change, with applicants able to request expedited slots on a case-by-case basis.

“While in the past the emphasis may have been on processing cases quickly and reducing wait times, our embassies and consulates around the world, including in India, are now prioritizing thoroughly vetting each visa case above all else,” the State Department spokesperson said. Appointments in Ireland and Vietnam have also been postponed, according to immigration firm Reddy Neumann Brown PC.

Below are the full texts of the internal memos sent to employees at these companies, obtained by Business Insider, which reveal how corporate America is responding to the visa processing slowdown.

Google declined to comment, while Microsoft, Apple, and ServiceNow did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Microsoft


Microsoft

Microsoft has advised its visa-holding workers not to travel.

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images



Below is the text of a memo sent by Jack Chen, Microsoft’s associate general counsel for immigration.

Update #1 on H-1B/H-4 Visa Appointment Rescheduling and Stamping Delays
Hi everyone,
As shared yesterday, some U.S. consulates are rescheduling existing H-1B/H-4 visa appointments and pushing dates out by several months. Here’s what we know:
  • Rescheduling notifications are concentrated in Chennai and Hyderabad, with some unverified reports from other consulates. New dates are as far out as June 2026.
  • The delays stem from operational constraints tied to the new online presence review for H-1B/H-4 visas, effective December 15, which reduces daily processing capacity. We’re also hearing that these consulates needed time to implement new vetting procedures.
  • We have no confirmed reports of rescheduling for other visa types yet. While only H-1B/H-4, F, J, and M visas are subject to the online presence review, we think secondary impacts on overall processing may emerge.
  • We don’t know if rescheduling is ongoing, for those whose original visa appointments have not been changed.
Some employees have already traveled for appointments and received rescheduling notices without warning; others are getting notices before departure. To set expectations, it is highly unlikely emergency appointments will be granted, given the circumstances.
This is a rapidly developing situation. Here is our preliminary guidance, which we’ll update as we learn more. Please read this next section carefully—I’ve tried to simplify it, but the details do matter:

For those currently outside the U.S.:

  • You need a new visa stamp + your H-1B visa appointment was rescheduled months later: We will contact you. Please follow the instructions below to report your situation (even if you’ve already contacted AskUSI).
  • Your H-1B visa appointment was rescheduled BUT you still have some validity left on your current visa stamp: If your visa is for the proper work-authorized category, return before your current visa expires. This situation applies for people who had scheduled visa appointments because their visas are expiring soon, not before the return to the U.S. is planned.

For those still in the U.S.:

  • You have upcoming travel + will need a new visa to return + your H-1B visa appointment was rescheduled months later: You should strongly consider changing your travel plans. You cannot return until your new visa stamp is issued, and it’s highly unlikely that the appointment can be moved earlier. And there are limitations to your ability to perform work for your U.S. role during that period. See Microsoft Global Mobility Payroll and Tax Compliance Policy.
  • You have upcoming travel + will need a new visa to return BUT your H-1B visa appointment has not been rescheduled: There is risk your appointment could be moved during your trip and result in you being stuck abroad. Factor this into your decision. We are still learning more about how widespread and significant delays are in other consulates.
For other visa categories (not H-1B/H-4, F, J, M): Proceed as planned for now, but note things can change quickly.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US IDENTIFY TRENDS

To track real-time impacts, we need data from employees whose appointments have been rescheduled or may be soon. This will help us identify:
  • Which consulates are affected
  • When notifications of rescheduling are being sent
  • Length of delays
  • Whether other visa types are impacted
If you have a visa appointment scheduled with a U.S. consulate for any visa category, we’ve created a survey where you can share these details with us. And importantly, the survey allows you to update your responses—for example, if you haven’t been rescheduled when you originally complete this survey, but subsequently receive a rescheduling notification. This form is also the clearest way for us to identify employees who are currently outside the U.S. and cannot return until a new visa stamp is issued: Census of Upcoming Visa Stamping Appointments — Fill out form
We’ll share out insights based on these responses and further information we’re able to gather by the end of the week.
For employees currently stuck abroad—we know this is an anxious moment. We will provide clear and orderly guidance to you directly as soon as we can.

Google


Google

Lawyers for Google told the company’s visa-holding staffers that visa processing is facing delays as long as a year.

Cheng Xin/Getty Images



Below is the text of an email sent by Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP (BAL), the immigration firm that represents Google.

Hi everyone,
Please be aware that some U.S. Embassies and Consulates are experiencing significant visa stamping appointment delays, currently reported as up to 12 months.
Due to high demand and enhanced screening for H-1B, H-4, F, J and M visas, visa processing is taking longer than usual. If you require a new visa stamp to re-enter the U.S., we recommend avoiding international travel at this time as you risk an extended stay outside the U.S.
We encourage you to review go/bal-travel-advisory. If you have any questions, reach out to schedule a consultation with a BAL attorney at go/getsupport.
Thank you,
BAL

Apple


Apple

Apple also sent memos to visa-holding workers warning them of extended delays in visa processing.

Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images



Below is the text of an email sent by Apple’s immigration team.

Given the recent updates and the possibility of unpredictable, extended delays when returning to the US, we strongly recommend that employees without a valid H-1B visa stamp avoid international travel for now. If travel cannot be postponed, employees should connect with Apple Immigration and Fragomen in advance to discuss the risks.

ServiceNow


ServiceNow

ServiceNow, an IT automation firm, told its visa holders that a new immigration policy requiring the vetting of social media is causing delays in processing.

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images



Below is the text of an email sent by ServiceNow’s Global Mobility Team.

Potential cancellation of US consulate appointments for H-1B and H-4 visa holders

Global Mobility update

What to know
The US State Department has announced that some consulate appointments for individuals holding H-1B and H-4 visas are being canceled due to a newly implemented review process that examines applicants’ online presence, including social media activity.
This change primarily affects foreign nationals with appointments scheduled on or after December 15, 2025, at US consulates in India who require visa stamps to return to the United States. However, it could also impact other visa types and consulates in the future.
Please see the Fragomen client alert here.
Notification process
If your appointment is affected by this process change, you will receive an email from the consulate with a cancellation notice and a new appointment, which in some cases could be as late as November 2026.
If you’re outside the U.S. right now
  • If you need a new visa stamp and your H-1B visa appointment has been delayed by several months: Reach out to your manager as soon as possible to discuss whether an exception to the 30-day Work from Anywhere policy is warranted.
  • If your H-1B appointment has been delayed, but your current visa stamp is still valid: If your visa category allows you to work in the U.S., we recommend you return before your current visa expires.
Exceptions and emergency appointments
If your appointment has been cancelled or rescheduled, you may apply for an emergency expedited appointment if you meet one of the following criteria:
  1. Death in the family
  2. Medical need / Family Emergency
  3. Potential loss of substantial revenue, profits, or contracts for the company
We have heard that the expedited consulate appointment process is resulting in an earlier appointment, so you are encouraged to try this approach by completing the request form. Please review the Expedited Consulate Appointments site for additional details.
Working from India or any location using the Work from Anywhere exception
If delay would materially impact revenue/contracts or there’s a medical/family emergency, ServiceNow will review and approve exceptions to the 30-day Work from Anywhere guidelines on a case-by-case basis.
Travel guidance
If you’re planning travel, please consult with Fragomen for guidance before making any arrangements. If you have upcoming trips to India that require a consulate appointment for visa stamping to return to the U.S., we recommend cancelling those plans. Otherwise, you risk significant delays in securing an appointment to apply for a visa stamp.
Support
If you have questions about consulate appointment cancellations or upcoming travel, you can reach out to Fragomen through the Fragomen Messenger feature within the Fragomen Connect Portal or submit a request to the Global Mobility team.
The Global Mobility Team

Have a tip? Contact Pranav Dixit via email at pranavdixit@protonmail.com or Signal at 1-408-905-9124. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.




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Google warns some visa employees not to leave the US due to ‘significant’ return delays of up to a year

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Google has advised some employees on visas not to travel outside the US due to delays at embassies, Business Insider has learned.

The company’s outside counsel BAL Immigration Law sent an email on Thursday advising staff who require a visa stamp to re-enter the US not to leave the country because visa processing was taking longer than usual, according to a copy of the memo reviewed by Business Insider.

“Please be aware that some US Embassies and Consulates are experiencing significant visa stamping appointment delays, currently reported as up to 12 months,” the memo read. It was recommended that employees avoid international travel as they would “risk an extended stay outside the US.”

American consulates and embassies around the world are seeing delays with routine visa appointments following the introduction of a new social media screening requirement, which applies to H-1B visa workers and their dependents, as well as students and exchange visitors.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Department of State told Business Insider it was conducting “online presence reviews for applicants.” The department said it may move appointments as resources change, with applicants able to request expedited slots on a case-by-case basis.

“While in the past the emphasis may have been on processing cases quickly and reducing wait times, our embassies and consulates around the world, including in India, are now prioritizing thoroughly vetting each visa case above all else,” the State Department spokesperson said. Appointments in Ireland and Vietnam have also been postponed, according to immigration firm Reddy Neumann Brown PC.

Google’s lawyers said in the memo that the delays were affecting H-1B, H-4, F, J, and M visas. The advisory did not specify what anyone on a visa already outside the country with a postponed appointment should do.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment.

How enhanced visa vetting can complicate a routine trip abroad

Google’s warning echoes a wave of internal travel advisories that swept through corporate America in September, as the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas.

The H-1B visa typically lasts up to three years and can often be extended. If someone needs a new H-1B visa stamp, they typically must apply at a US embassy or consulate in their home country or a country where they have lawful residence.

As a general matter, said immigration attorney Jason Finkelman, who focuses on employment and family immigration, foreign nationals should be able to return to the US after travel abroad if they have a valid visa stamp and aren’t subject to any entry restrictions, including the Trump administration’s expanded travel ban, which the White House says takes effect January 1.

That’s where enhanced vetting can complicate an otherwise routine trip. If an H-1B worker leaves the US to get a new visa stamp and their consular appointment is canceled or delayed — sometimes by months — they can be stuck abroad until the visa is issued.

“My advice to clients is that if travel isn’t essential right now, better to stay put,” Finkelman said.

A spokesperson for the Department of State said consular officers “do not issue a visa unless the applicant can credibly demonstrate they meet all requirements under US law — including that they intend to engage only in activities consistent with the terms of their visa.”

The H-1B program, which is capped at 85,000 new visas a year, serves as a core pipeline for employers hiring skilled foreign workers. Tech giants have long been among the largest users of the visa, with companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta topping the lists of approved new H-1B petitions in recent years. 

Under the Trump administration, the program has become a political flash point, with the White House framing H-1Bs as a threat to American jobs and rolling out measures that critics and employers say make it harder and more expensive to hire new workers.




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Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says AI scaling ‘must be pushed to the maximum’

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There’s a debate rippling through Silicon Valley: How far can scaling laws take the technology?

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, whose company just released Gemini 3 to widespread acclaim, has made it clear where he stands on the issue.

“The scaling of the current systems, we must push that to the maximum, because at the minimum, it will be a key component of the final AGI system,” he said at the Axios’ AI+ Summit in San Francisco last week. “It could be the entirety of the AGI system.”

AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a still theoretical version of AI that reasons as well as humans. It’s the goal all the leading AI companies are competing to reach, fueling huge amounts of spending on infrastructure and talent.

AI scaling laws suggest that the more data and compute an AI model is given, the smarter it will get.

Hassabis said that scaling alone will likely get the industry to AGI, but that he suspects there will need to be”one or two” other breakthroughs as well.

The problem with scaling alone is that there is a limit to publicly available data, and adding compute means building data centers, which is expensive and taxing on the environment.

Some AI watchers are also concerned that the AI companies behind the leading large-language models are beginning to show diminishing returns on their massive investments in scaling.

Researchers like Yann LeCun, the chief AI scientist at Meta who recently announced he was leaving to run his own startup, believe the industry needs to consider another way.

“Most interesting problems scale extremely badly,” he said at the National University of Singapore in April. “You cannot just assume that more data and more compute means smarter AI.”

LeCun is leaving Meta to work on building world models, an alternative to large-language models that rely on collecting spatial data rather than language-based data.

“The goal of the startup is to bring about the next big revolution in AI: systems that understand the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason, and can plan complex action sequences,” he wrote on LinkedIn in November.




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Judge orders Google to rebid for default search deals every year in a major antitrust blow

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  • A federal judge ordered Google to limit default search and AI app contracts to one year.
  • The ruling follows a 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search markets.
  • The decision aims to boost competition from rivals in search apps and generative AI.

A judge opened the door to upending Google’s dominance as the default search on your phone.

On Friday, a federal judge ordered Google to limit all default search and AI app contracts to one year, a setback for the long-term deals that have helped cement the company’s dominance on billions of devices.

The ruling, detailed in a December 2025 judgment, requires Alphabet’s Google to renegotiate every default-placement agreement annually, including lucrative deals with Apple’s iPhone and manufacturers like Samsung.

Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court of the District of Columbia said the “hard-and-fast termination requirement after one year” is necessary to enforce antitrust relief after his landmark 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search and search advertising.

The decision aims to open the door for rivals, especially fast-moving generative AI companies, to compete for default spots that have historically been held for years at a time. It builds on a separate September order requiring Google to share some of the data behind its search rankings with competitors.

While Google can still pay device makers for default placement, the annual renegotiation rule sharply restricts its ability to secure long-term control over the search market.

Google and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.




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OpenAI is feeling the heat from Google right now — for good reason

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Two “code red” alerts — the first from a veteran tech giant worried about a buzzy AI upstart, the second from the AI upstart after the tech giant gained ground.

What a difference three years can make.

News of a recent Sam Altman memo to OpenAI employees, first reported by The Information, is reverberating around the tech world and highlighting the competitive heat it’s facing as Google narrows the gap in the AI race.

On Monday, Altman reportedly told OpenAI employees in an internal Slack memo that he was issuing a “code red” and that the company would be putting more resources into ChatGPT and delaying other products as a result.

Altman’s memo illustrates just how much the AI race has changed. In 2022, Google’s management issued its own “code red” in the wake of ChatGPT’s launch, a moment that illustrated in sharp relief just how far behind the search giant was in the AI race despite financing the breakthrough research that paved the way for AI’s development.

Three years later, it’s clear that OpenAI’s throne is under threat. Here are some of the pressure points it’s facing as Google nips at its heels.

Google is catching up

The elephant in the OpenAI room is Google’s Gemini 3 AI model, which debuted to widespread praise.

The model’s capabilities demonstrated that Google is no longer far behind in the AI race. It’s not just OpenAI that’s unnerved, either. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market cap, recently found itself defending its AI chips after a report about Google’s own chip progress.

The search giant said in November that Gemini had more than 650 million monthly active users, a large increase from the 450 million such users it reported in July. In comparison, OpenAI has said nearly 800 million weekly active users.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently said that he was ditching ChatGPT in favor of Gemini 3 because of Gemini’s “insane” improvement.

“Holy shit,” Benioff wrote on X last month. “I’ve used ChatGPT every day for 3 years. Just spent 2 hours on Gemini 3. I’m not going back. The leap is insane — reasoning, speed, images, video… everything is sharper and faster. It feels like the world just changed, again.”

Last month, Google launched “Nano Banana Pro,” its AI image generator, showcasing hyper-realistic images that users quickly used to imagine tech CEOs hanging out together or pretend famous Thanksgiving dinner table guests.

Altman’s “code red,” according to The Information’s report, specifically mentions Gemini 3 and teases a coming OpenAI model that it says tested “ahead” of Google’s flagship model, as well as mentions prioritizing OpenAI’s Imagegen image generation model for ChatGPT users.

Google’s advertising cash cow can fund its AI — while OpenAI faces a $1.4 trillion bill

The AI game is an expensive one, and Google has the advantage of being a cash-generating advertising juggernaut.

Sure, Google plans to spend between $91 billion and $93 billion this year on cap ex, much of which is going toward AI costs. But it also brought in $100 billion in revenue in just the last quarter alone — $74.18 billion of which came from its advertising business.

And unlike OpenAI, Google can leverage its massive size for a full-stack advantage, allowing it to control AI development from research to chip manufacturing to its in-house cloud, which hosts everything.

Meanwhile, some on Wall Street have raised concerns about OpenAI’s mounting AI spending commitments, which tally at least $1.4 trillion over the next eight years. In response, Altman has said OpenAI is on track to bring in $20 billion in revenue this year, and expects its annualized revenue to grow to hundreds of billions in the coming years.

But OpenAI is still figuring out its own ads business — the launch of which could be delayed by Altman’s “code red,” according to The Information.

OpenAI has a head start — but Google has a platform advantage

OpenAI hasn’t squandered its head start, and it’s landed some major wins this year.

In recent months, OpenAI has made significant plays into other industries, including social media with Sora, its TikTok-esque AI video generation app. In a direct shot at Google Chrome, OpenAI also launched Atlas, its own web browser.

And it sounds like OpenAI has more up its sleeve as it battles the bottleneck of lining up enough compute and energy to power its developments.

OpenAI executives have said compute constraints are holding back other initiatives, like making ChatGPT Pulse, a personalized update feature within the chatbot for Pro users, available to everyone. Last week, Bill Peebles, OpenAI’s head of Sora, announced that free users would face significant cuts in the number of videos they could generate per day.

ChatGPT also remains synonymous with AI — not unlike Google and online search. That will likely help continue to drive app downloads and usage and could also stave off Google’s attempts to convince users to switch to Gemini or Google’s other AI-infused products.

But humans are creatures of habit, and many already use a Google product or service everyday — a platform advantage that the tech giant is already utilizing to siphon away ChatGPT users.

Silicon Valley’s history is built on startup disrupting the status quo.

Now, with OpenAI (smartly) looking over its shoulder, we get to watch the AI race heat up as Google, a former startup, gets its AI legs and hits its stride.

For OpenAI, it’s a reminder that tech giants can put up quite a fight when facing the prospect of being disrupted — and sometimes, can turn the tables.

“I try not to think about competitors too much,” Altman said last May before critiquing Google’s aesthetic.

It sounds like those days are gone.




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Google engineer said landing an AI role took a year and daily studying

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maitri Mangal, a 26-year-old software engineer at Google, based in New York. Her identity and employment have been verified by Business Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I started off as a software engineer, my dad, who also works in tech, kept telling me to get into AI.

I brushed it off because I was just starting off my engineering career, and no one was really talking about AI in 2019, unless they were getting a PhD.

Then in 2023, the tech industry changed and everyone started going into AI. That led me to want to start pursuing AI as a job, and also creating content about it. When trying to join an AI team, I think having a strong presence and personal brand is crucial for others to take you seriously.

In my three years at Google, I’ve changed roles three times, most recently switching to the Workspace AI team.

It’s important to make a distinction between an AI machine learning engineer and an AI software engineer. An AI ML engineer creates the model, trains it, and evaluates it. An AI software engineer integrates AI capabilities into software applications, and builds APIs and infrastructure to serve the model to the end user.

My transition to an AI team didn’t happen overnight. It required spending about a year upskilling through courses and creating content about the material, which forced me to learn the concepts.

Here’s how I made the switch:

Creating content about AI

In the spring of 2024, I started creating tech content on Instagram and LinkedIn, outside my job. That became a major factor in my transition to an AI team.

Making content motivated me to keep learning and also made me confident about sharing what I knew. Once I started seeing how much it helped people, I wanted to learn more. So that’s where the upskilling started, and I started taking courses to understand the fundamentals of AI.

Eventually, I started applying to AI teams at Google. I felt like if I was going to spend so much time upskilling and making content about AI, I should make the most of what I had. I started searching for new roles in January, about seven months after I started upskilling. In March, I landed the new job.

I still spend an hour a day upskilling

I typically take Google’s internal courses to upskill. Coursera also has amazing courses.

The easiest way to start is by taking the basics of AI, like Google’s Introduction to Generative AI and Google Prompting Essentials. Since I have a computer science background, I was able to get more in-depth with concepts like linear regression and vector analysis.

I took courses for about two hours a day, but in order to absorb the material, I had to talk about it, not just read. When I verbalized the concepts through making content, it helped me understand the material.

I also get feedback from my followers, and when they ask follow-up questions in the comments, it makes me go even deeper into understanding a topic. Talking to friends or teammates who are excited about AI also helps me better understand the material.

In this field, it’s very hard not to learn. I’m not necessarily still dedicating two hours daily to courses, but I still spend about an hour a day upskilling, whether that’s in the form of internal trainings for my job, or watching YouTube courses for the content I create.

Not everyone wants to create content, so that’s not always the best way to go about transitioning to an AI team. If you’re just starting out in tech, my biggest piece of advice would be to take on projects. You should definitely take courses about AI, but keeping up-to-date with the news and doing AI projects also really helps. Many AI courses have users do mini projects, so you get to know how to work with it.

Since I applied internally, I didn’t have to go through the same interview process. However, I still had to submit my résumé, which included all of my side projects, and I think that really helps.




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