The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) technology initiative designed to improve family caregiver support and strengthen the nation’s health care workforce.

The new Caregiver AI Challenge is a national competition that encourages the development of innovative technologies aimed at improving outcomes, efficiency and sustainability amid rising demand for home-based care. Winners of the AI competition will receive a $2 million prize for the best ideas that build up support, reduce stress and expand training opportunities for both paid and family caregivers.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced the new AI initiative during a virtual event on Tuesday hosted by in collaboration with the Administration for Community Living (ACL).

“HHS is launching the Caregiver AI Challenge, a national competition to spark innovation and to find the next generation of tools that empower caregivers,” Kennedy said during the virtual event. “AI can transform caregiving by delivering on-demand support, predicting health risks before they happen, monitoring well-being and automating paperwork so that caregivers can focus on what matters most – the care and compassion of the people whom they seek to help.”

The Caregiver AI challenge will unfold in three phases of design, testing and scaling (or implementation). The AI tools will be evaluated based on the ability to assist caregivers in their daily tasks such as medical appointment management, monitoring an individual’s needs and providing person-centered support.

New AI technologies have increasingly come to fruition in health care delivery in recent years. Hospices and other health care providers have leveraged AI to ease caregiver and employees’ burden, better predict patient trajectories and improve outcomes, documentation, compliance and operational efficiency. Other uses for AI have included remote patient monitoring (RPM) systems, improving transitions of care, boosting retention, increasing awareness and utilization in advance care planning.

Driving the new AI challenge forward is a growing need for both family caregivers and home-based health care workers, Kennedy stated. The nation’s aging population is swelling alongside an underserved population of serious, chronically ill and disabled individuals, he indicated.

The development of more innovative AI technologies is intended/designed to help ease caregiving strain and address the nation’s workforce challenges, Kennedy said.

“We’re calling on the engineers, scientists, innovators [and] entrepreneurs across the country to harness artificial intelligence to make caregiving smarter, simpler and more humane,” Kennedy said. “America’s caregivers, you are not invisible. We are committed to elevating your voices, strengthening your values and ensuring that you have the tools and support that you need to meet the growing demand for care. This includes peer support groups, respite care, technology that lightens your load, education and counseling for those under constant stress.”

Health care staffing shortages exacerbated by the pandemic have worsened for several years running, impacting quality and sustainability of end-of-life care for patients and caregivers alike.

The United States is facing a deficit of more than 100,000 health care workers by 2028, according to a recent report from Mercer, a company of Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC).

An estimated 63 million Americans provide ongoing, complex care to adults or children with a medical condition or disability, according to a 2025 report from the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and AARP. Representing nearly one-quarter of the nation’s adult population, the current volume of family caregivers has risen 45% since 2015, the report found.

Many family caregivers lack formal training needed to support their loved ones, NAC CEO Jason Resendez previously told Hospice News in an email. Navigating a fragmented health care system and finding respite support serve as two large barriers for caregivers, issues that AI could help improve, according to Resendez.

“Right now, we have a broken system where institutional care is often treated as an entitlement, but staying in your own home requires navigating waiver programs and waiting lists and restrictions,” Resendez said during the HHS virtual event. “We need to flip this paradigm. The national strategy to support family caregivers provides our roadmap for this transformation. This strategy translates that recognition into action across aging, chronic illness and disability, across the private sector, across states, across philanthropy and across political divides.”