Kinney Drugs pulls back AI phone assistant after hundreds of customer complaints

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BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Kinney Drugs is scaling back its AI assistant after customers reported incoherent calls, wrong dosages, and missed prescription notifications.

Kinney Drugs first introduced Burt, an AI assistant named after the pharmacy chain’s founder, back in May. The bot’s role was to communicate with patients about prescriptions and refills. But customers quickly reported a number of issues with the tech, as first reported by VTDigger.

“But one thing I want to point out is getting privacy and security right does not mean we got the experience right. We did not, and we own that,” Kinney Drugs President John Marraffa said.

Marraffa says Kinney will return to its old model for incoming patient calls — the classic touch-tone phone system.

Customers also raised concerns about data privacy — worried their personal health information could be exposed through an AI platform. Marraffa says Burt is fully HIPAA compliant and that the AI is not open-source and does not generate or manipulate data.

Kinney will keep Burt for outbound communications like prescription refill texts, but patients must opt in to receive them.

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