Kinney Drugs Scales Back AI Phone Assistant After Customer Complaints

Kinney Drugs is scaling back its AI phone assistant after customers reported incoherent calls, wrong dosages, and missed prescription notifications. The pharmacy chain introduced Burt, an AI assistant named after its founder, in May to handle patient communications about prescriptions and refills. President John Marraffa acknowledged the rollout failed: 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 will revert to its classic touch-tone phone system for incoming patient calls. Customers also raised data privacy concerns, though Marraffa said Burt is fully HIPAA compliant, not open-source, and does not generate or manipulate data.

The company will keep Burt for outbound communications like prescription refill texts, but patients must opt in to receive them. The issues were first reported by VT Digger.