IEEE’s July 2026 “Technology Megatrends 2030” report predicts that human-AI interaction will reach broad commercial adoption faster than any of the other 30 technologies it examined. Based on workshops and survey data from 168 technical and scientific experts across 38 countries, the panel expects interfaces to shift from text-based typing toward real-time audio and video interactions within two to three years. It also identifies AI literacy as a basic work skill for office, trade and technical roles.

A separate April 2026 report from Moms First, developed with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, focuses on what it calls foundational workers. Its analysis combined Census and labor-market data with an online survey of 1,655 employed U.S. parents, fielded from February 10 to 23. McKinsey’s role was limited to providing data analysis and research insights, while the interpretations and recommendations belong to Moms First.

The report defines foundational workers as people whose jobs require direct service, real-time oversight, fixed schedules or physical presence. Nurses, teachers, retail associates, manufacturing workers and hospitality employees fall into this group, which the report estimates represents about 80% of the U.S. workforce. Many of these roles are less exposed to automation because the work remains physical, interpersonal and dependent on context. The report expects them to remain a significant share of employment through 2030.

Less exposed does not mean safe. AI will still change tasks, expectations and staffing models. But for much of this workforce, the immediate threat is not a machine taking the job, and the concentration of working mothers in these roles is important. According to the Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey, 1.3 million working mothers were elementary and middle school teachers and another 1.1 million were registered nurses. Those figures may be six years old, but they show how heavily mothers are represented in work that organizations and communities cannot simply stop performing.

Moms First estimates that child care breakdowns create a $35 billion to $45 billion annual business opportunity within the foundational workforce alone. That estimate reflects absenteeism, workers leaving the labor force, attrition and reduced productivity while at work. When the model includes potential gains in productivity, retention and recruiting, the report says the opportunity could rise to $50 billion to $70 billion annually.

At the same time, Gartner projects worldwide IT spending will reach $6.37 trillion in 2026, a 14.2% increase from the previous year. Data center systems and infrastructure as a service are among the fastest-growing categories as organizations expand their AI capacity.

Gartner is measuring global technology spending, while Moms First is modeling the U.S. business impact of child care disruptions. Still, the contrast exposes an organizational assumption. Companies readily treat compute, cloud capacity and data centers as infrastructure. Care is still treated as a personal problem.

Yet fewer than 15% of private-sector workers had access to employer-provided child care benefits as of March 2025. Moms First modeled average returns ranging from about 5% to 300% across different employer interventions, with individual case studies reporting returns as high as 425%. The report appropriately cautions that these estimates are illustrative, not guarantees that every employer will achieve the same results.

Chobani offers employees 10 days of backup care and $1,200 a year in care funding. About half of its employees are registered for the program, and the company reported that child care was its highest-utilization ancillary benefit. Hilton said more than 3,500 team members had enrolled in its care-navigation program since 2022, saving more than 37,000 hours.

IEEE describes a future in which people without jobs and jobs without people coexist. It argues that long-term success will depend on trust, security, governance and safe human-AI interaction as technology scales.

Energy grids, computing infrastructure and human-AI interaction will change how millions of people do their jobs by 2030. But a nurse cannot cover a shift when a child is sick and no backup care exists. A manufacturing employee cannot use a child care center that opens two hours after the plant shift begins. A retail worker cannot build a sustainable career around a schedule that changes faster than care arrangements can.

The future of work conversation keeps asking which jobs technology will eliminate. For millions of mothers doing essential work, the more immediate question is whether the absence of child care will eliminate their ability to keep working. As companies pour trillions into AI, they risk overlooking the more immediate threat to essential workers, especially mothers: the lack of affordable, reliable child care.