Drugstore chain pulls back AI assistant after receiving hundreds of customer complaints

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX/Gray News) - A drugstore chain says it is scaling back its AI assistant after receiving hundreds of customer complaints.

Kinney Drugs said customers have reported incoherent calls, wrong dosages and missed prescription notifications from the AI assistant.

The drugstore that mainly serves upstate New York and Vermont says it introduced the AI assistant named Burt, 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 several issues with the tech.

“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.

According to Marraffa, Kinney Drugs 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.

According to Marraffa, Burt is fully HIPAA compliant, and the AI is not open-source and does not generate or manipulate data.

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