Kinney Drugs pulls AI phone assistant after hundreds of complaints

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

Kinney Drugs rolled back its AI phone assistant Burt after three months, following customer reports of incoherent calls, wrong dosages, and missed prescription alerts. President John Marraffa said HIPAA compliance doesn't equal a good experience. Incoming patient calls return to a touch-tone system; Burt stays only for opt-in refill texts. The article does not name the underlying model or voice vendor.

Why it matters: A pharmacy chain pulled its AI phone assistant after dosage errors and missed prescription reminders, with the CEO publicly owning the failure — a rare honest postmortem of AI in a healthcare setting. Score held back because the article doesn't name the underlying model or voi...