Harvard’s startup bootcamp integrates AI avatars for instructor-led feedback

Harvard Business School’s HBS Foundry bootcamp, priced at $699, has integrated AI avatars of instructors to provide feedback during practice pitches and board meetings. The eight-week program includes weekly live sessions with instructors, but the AI avatars are responsible for delivering individualized feedback during these exercises.

The AI avatars were developed in collaboration with HeyGen, a startup specializing in synthetic media. Initially, the program’s AI component was envisioned as a chatbot, but after a trial version was released, students requested a more guided, avatar-based experience, prompting the shift.

Participants in the bootcamp reported positive experiences with the AI avatars, contrasting with broader skepticism about AI among college students. Project director Katharina Rings noted that student feedback drove the move away from a purely chatbot-like interaction toward a more immersive avatar format.

Notable entrepreneur and Flybridge Capital co-founder Jeff Bussgang, whose AI avatar was used in a demonstration, described his digital copy as "creepy," though he acknowledged that his students enjoy interacting with it.