Harvard’s $699 startup bootcamp offers AI avatars of its instructors
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- Harvard Business School launched HBS Foundry, an eight-week, $699 bootcamp for entrepreneurs that uses AI avatars of its instructors to give individual feedback during practice pitches and board meetings.
- HeyGen created the avatars, while live sessions with real instructors still occur weekly — the AI handles feedback in between.
- Sarah Kessler of the New York Times tested the system by pitching "Uber for bananas" to an AI copy of Jeff Bussgang, co-founder of Flybridge Capital; both the real and virtual Bussgang were unimpressed, though the avatar displayed a noticeably frozen smile.
- Project director Katharina Rings said she initially envisioned the AI piece as a chatbot, but students who trialed an early version asked for a more guided experience — prompting the avatar design.
- Despite broader skepticism of AI among some college students, Foundry participants told Kessler they liked the avatars.
- Bussgang acknowledged his digital copy is "creepy" but added, "My students love it," giving the pilot rare instructor-level buy-in.
Why it matters: At $699, HBS Foundry offers avatar-based coaching modeled on named instructors like Bussgang—feedback that students reportedly prefer over the simpler chatbot Rings originally envisioned. Bussgang's own endorsement ("My students love it") despite calling the copy "creepy" gives the program rare instructor buy-in, a hurdle most AI-tutoring efforts struggle to clear.
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