Kinney Drugs Scraps AI Phone Assistant After Patient Backlash
The pharmacy chain is returning to traditional phone systems after its AI assistant, 'Burt,' caused medication delays and dosage errors.
Kinney Drugs has disabled its AI-powered phone assistant following hundreds of customer complaints regarding technical failures. The company is reverting to a traditional touch-tone phone system for incoming calls to ensure patient safety and reliability.
The AI assistant, named "Burt" after the pharmacy chain's founder Burt Kinney, was launched in May to manage patient communications, specifically regarding prescription refills. However, the rollout was marred by significant technical issues. According to reports from WCAX and Zeli, customers experienced incoherent interactions, incorrect medication dosages, and critical delays in receiving their prescriptions.
The Risk of Automation in Healthcare
Founded in 1903, Kinney Drugs operates nearly 100 locations across New York and Vermont as a community-focused retail chain. The introduction of Burt was part of a wider industry trend where companies integrate large language models (LLMs) into customer service to increase efficiency. While automation works in low-stakes retail, the healthcare sector presents a high-risk environment where the margin for error is nonexistent.
Implications for the Industry
This rollback highlights the dangerous potential for "hallucinations" or technical glitches in generative AI when applied to medical care. In a pharmacy setting, a misunderstood command or a misstated dosage is not merely a customer service failure but a potential health crisis. The incident underscores a growing tension between corporate goals for operational efficiency and the absolute necessity for reliability and precision in medical communications.
What's Next
While the AI has been removed from the incoming call flow, the company may still utilize Burt for opt-in outbound text notifications. Observers of the healthcare tech space will be watching to see if other regional pharmacy chains scale back their AI ambitions in favor of human-led triage, as the balance between automation and patient safety remains a critical point of friction.