Across the nation, more than 70 million paid and unpaid caregivers make community living possible for older adults and people with disabilities. Yet the direct care workforce faces historic shortages, and family caregivers are increasingly filling critical gaps, often under significant physical, emotional, and financial strain. Together, these pressures are creating a growing crisis that threatens the ability of millions of Americans to live independently.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining attention as a potential tool to help address these challenges, but its impact will depend on how it is designed and implemented. Thoughtful approaches must center the experiences of direct care workers and the people they support, ensuring AI tools reflect real-world care needs and strengthen, rather than replace, the human relationships at the heart of this work. Safeguards around privacy, bias, and job quality are essential. This page highlights key resources and emerging practices to help states, providers, and stakeholders explore how AI can be deployed to meaningfully support and sustain the direct care workforce.
DCW Strategies Center Reports
The Strategies Center’s AI report series explores how AI is beginning to shape the future of direct care and what it means for workers, providers, and the people they support. Grounded in real-world practice and informed by input from states, national partners, and stakeholders, these reports examine both the opportunities and risks of integrating AI into home and community-based services.
The series highlights practical use cases across care delivery and workforce systems, from reducing administrative burden and supporting training to improving care coordination and quality. At the same time, it centers the experiences of direct care workers, emphasizing the importance of designing AI tools that enhance job quality, strengthen relationships, and reflect the realities of care work.
Together, these reports are intended to start a broader conversation about the role of AI in direct care, offering early insights and considerations to help states, providers, and partners thoughtfully explore how these technologies can support the workforce and the people they serve.
A New Era of Care Reports
Executive Summary
Coming soon!
Beyond the Algorithm: Expert Insights on AI and the Care Workforce
Coming soon!
Upcoming Events
As interest in AI continues to grow, these events bring together states, providers, workers, and national partners to explore how emerging technologies can be applied in ways that reflect the realities of direct care work.
Through webinars, workshops, and convenings, participants will engage with practical use cases, hear diverse perspectives, and examine both the opportunities and challenges of integrating AI into home and community-based services. These events are designed not only to share information, but to build a collective understanding of how AI can support the direct care workforce and strengthen the systems that rely on it.
- AI and the Direct Care Workforce: Perspectives on Adoption, Ethics, and What Comes Next — Details and registration link coming soon