How much time do you spend managing multiple tools? And how much time would you like to have for what actually needs your expertise?

I have been asking myself this question for over a decade. I started my career managing immigration cases inside a corporate team, then moved to the vendor side, then built a mobility function from scratch at a growing company before co-founding Talent Journey. At every stage, the answer was the same. Too much time. Too many tools. And almost none of them built for what we actually do.

I would open my computer in the morning and before feeling like I was actually working, I had already answered three client status update emails, chased a document that someone forgot to send, cross-referenced a spreadsheet to find a renewal date, and tried to locate a conversation that had happened somewhere between email, WhatsApp and a shared folder nobody could find.

By the time I sat down to do the work that actually required my knowledge — advising a company on the right visa strategy, supporting a family through a complex process, making sure nothing fell through the cracks — half the day was already gone.

The data confirms what everyone in this industry already knows

According to the 2025 KPMG Global Mobility Benchmarking Report, 43% of mobility professionals are already using AI for administrative tasks, and 62% are planning technology investments in the coming year. That number tells two stories simultaneously. The first is that the industry is starting to move. The second — and more important one — is that 57% are still not using AI for admin at all. Still doing manually what should be automated. Still spending hours on tasks that have nothing to do with their actual expertise.

64% of mobility programmes are prioritising the streamlining of time-consuming processes within the mobility function. Not because they want to. Because they have no choice. The volume of cases is growing. The complexity of immigration regulations is increasing. And the teams managing it are not.

Global mobility professionals are expected not only to deliver exceptional service and ensure global compliance and operational efficiency, but increasingly to provide strategic advice that supports the business in navigating risk and influencing broader talent, HR and tax strategies.

In other words, the job is getting bigger. The tools are not keeping up.

The fragmentation problem nobody talks about.

Here is the real issue. It is not that global mobility professionals lack knowledge. Most of the people I have worked with over the past decade are extraordinarily competent. They know the law. They know the process. They know what needs to happen and in what order.

The problem is that the infrastructure they have been given to do that work was never designed for them.

A generic CRM adapted for case tracking. A spreadsheet that someone built three years ago and only one person truly understands. An email inbox that doubles as a document repository. A separate tool for expenses. Another for compliance. A WhatsApp group for the urgent things. And a shared drive where documents go to be lost.

Every piece of information about a single relocation case, the talent's documents, the company's instructions, the deadlines, the appointment dates, the renewal timeline, the family situation, lives in a different place. The Global Mobility Manager is the only person holding the full picture in their head. And when something goes wrong, as it inevitably does, they are also the first person called.

This is not a workflow problem. This is an infrastructure problem.

Why global mobility is particularly exposed to AI?

The nature of global mobility work makes it one of the functions most ready for AI transformation. Not because it can be replaced by AI, it cannot.

The human judgment, the cultural sensitivity, the ability to navigate a complex situation when the rules do not quite fit the reality, that cannot be automated.

But the layer underneath it, the document checking, the form filling, the deadline tracking, the status updating, the question answering, the renewal alerting, the law monitoring, that layer absolutely can be. And it should be.

Technology automation will allow global mobility teams to reduce the time they spend on time-consuming manual processes, streamline important processes and create more efficient practices with both internal teams and external partners.

The question is not whether this transformation is coming. It is already here. The question is who is building the tools that are actually designed for the people who do this work every day.

Why we built Talent Journey the way we did?

The feedback I kept hearing from Global Mobility Managers, immigration lawyers and relocation agency professionals had one common thread. I am not looking for another tool to manage. I am looking for a system that understands what I actually do.

That was our answer.

We did not build Talent Journey as a CRM with global mobility fields added on top. We did not adapt a project management tool and call it a mobility platform. We built it from the inside out, starting with the actual complexity of a real relocation case, the actual documents required for each visa type, the actual sequence of tasks that need to happen in the right order, the actual questions a talent asks at every stage of the journey.

Every feature exists because someone doing this work needed it. Not because it looked good in a product roadmap.

Built for the entire ecosystem, not just one player

One thing that became clear very early in building Talent Journey is that the global mobility ecosystem is not just one type of organisation. It is a company with an internal HR team trying to manage their international hires. It is a relocation agency with dozens of active cases and no way to give their clients real-time visibility. It is an immigration law firm whose lawyers are spending hours on administrative work that should be automated.

All three have the same underlying problem. Fragmented tools, manual processes, and infrastructure that was not built for their specific reality.

So we built one platform for all three. With white label available for agencies and law firms who want to offer it under their own brand.

The question in global mobility is no longer whether your team needs better infrastructure. The question is which infrastructure was actually built by people who understand what your work looks like from the inside.

After ten years of doing this work, I can tell you what that looks like. We built it.

Sorina Burlacu is Co-Founder and COO of Talent Journey, a global mobility infrastructure platform built for companies, relocation agencies and law firms managing international talent.

With over a decade of experience in immigration and global mobility, having worked on the vendor side, the corporate side and as a founder.