Vermont pharmacy's AI assistant frustrates customers, raises privacy fears

Kinney Drugs' deployment of Burt reflects a broader trend of AI entering healthcare systems across the country, but the execution has revealed both technical and regulatory failures. The pharmacy cited efficiency gains—eliminating repetitive calls so pharmacists could focus on higher-value work—yet customers report the opposite: they are now calling pharmacists more frequently to resolve the AI's errors, adding stress to an already overburdened workforce facing chronic shortages in Vermont.

The privacy dimension compounds the problem. By routing customer health data through Synerio, a third-party vendor, the pharmacy has multiplied the attack surface for a data breach. Joseph Near, a University of Vermont computer science professor, notes that customers must now trust not only Kinney Drugs' security but also Synerio's—a fundamental shift that increases risk. Vermont's new data privacy law S.71, signed June 16 and taking effect in two years, is meant to address such concerns, but it exempts many categories of data collection and relies on consumer consent. Experts argue this approach is unrealistic: Kinney Drugs' terms span 11 documents, and customers often do not realize they have agreed to AI interaction until they hear Burt's voice during a refill call.

Rural customers face an additional bind. Those who distrust the system cannot easily switch to another pharmacy, so they either accept the AI or travel in person—an option unavailable to those without reliable transportation. This structural constraint means consent, in practice, is not a choice.