Aging in America News

| Allison Cook

| Artificial Intelligence, or AI, seems to be everywhere you look – in new apps, software upgrade, and music. It dominates news cycles with questions such as: Is it propping up the economy? When will it be smarter than a human? How will it impact the workforce? Now, a new federal prize competition will seek to channel the potential of AI to explore how it can support older adults and the people who care for them. 

There is an undeniable need for caregiving solutions. AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving estimate that 63 million people – roughly one in four adults – are family caregivers in the United States. They spend an average of 27 hours per week providing care, often at the expense of their physical, mental, and financial wellbeing. Meanwhile, PHI estimates that there are nearly 3.2 million home care workers in the United States. It is one of the largest and fastest-growing occupations in the country. These essential workers struggle with low wages, insufficient training, and limited support. As the baby boomers are getting older, demands are increasing upon both family caregivers and home care workers. Meeting this growing need requires innovation.

This is where AI could make a real difference. Experts like Laurie Orlov argue that AI currently works best when it augments what a human can provide or handles repetitive or paperwork-heavy tasks that humans would rather avoid. In her recent report on AI in home care, Orlov provided numerous examples of how AI is currently working, such as an AI tool listening during a home care intake conversation and automatically drafting a care plan or an AI-enabled remote monitoring system that notifies the care team when an older adult has fallen. Eventually, this technology could evolve to determine who is likely to have a fall and recommend interventions to prevent it from happening.  

The new $2 million Caregiver Artificial Intelligence Prize Competition, announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just before Thanksgiving, aims to accelerate exactly this kind of innovation. The competition “seeks practical and effective ways to use AI to help address these [caregiving] challenges — reimagining how technology can improve care quality, reduce burden, and strengthen the caregiving infrastructure for the future.” There will be two tracks – one focused on tools that support family caregivers and home care workers in providing care and the other focused on tools that improve home care organizations’ efficiency, scheduling, and training. More information about the prize competition will be released in early 2026. 

As AI reshapes our society, entrepreneurs and experts are hopeful that this prize will bring meaningful innovation to a field that is often overlooked or left behind by technological progress. If successful, these tools could lighten the load for millions of caregivers while improving quality of life for the older adults and people with disabilities that they serve—a win that’s long overdue.

Allison Cook is the founder of Better Aging and Policy Consulting.