Harvard's $699 startup bootcamp gives founders AI avatars of mentors

Harvard Business School's eight-week, $699 Foundry bootcamp for entrepreneurs now leans on AI avatars of its own instructors to deliver feedback, TechCrunch reported. The program still runs live weekly sessions with real instructors, but the AI avatars are the ones giving feedback during practice pitches and mock board meetings.

The avatars come from HeyGen, a startup known for generating realistic AI video avatars, a technology already used across corporate training and marketing before finding its way into a Harvard classroom. Foundry's setup pairs that video layer with a feedback loop built specifically for the pitch-and-critique cycle founders go through repeatedly during a raise.

New York Times reporter Sarah Kessler tried the program herself, pitching an AI-generated copy of Flybridge Capital co-founder Jeff Bussgang on a concept she described as "Uber for bananas." Both the real Bussgang and his AI simulacrum were unimpressed by the pitch, and Kessler noted the virtual version wore a noticeably frozen smile the entire time she spoke, an early sign of how far the technology still has to go before it can fully mimic natural conversation.

“My students love it.”

— Jeff Bussgang, co-founder, Flybridge Capital, on his AI avatar (which he also called a little "creepy")

Project director Katharina Rings initially envisioned the AI component as something closer to a simple chatbot. After HBS released a trial version, students pushed back and asked for a more guided experience, closer to a real mentor walking them through a scenario than a search box waiting for a prompt. Some college students elsewhere have been openly critical of AI showing up in their coursework, but Foundry participants told Kessler they like the avatars.

• Program: HBS Foundry, eight weeks, $699
• Avatar maker: HeyGen
• Feedback delivered by AI avatars: practice pitches, mock board meetings
• Live component: weekly sessions with real instructors
• Real quote: Jeff Bussgang calls his avatar "creepy" but says students love it

The fit makes practical sense. A founder rehearsing an investor pitch or a board update benefits from running the same scenario multiple times with consistent feedback, something a real instructor's calendar rarely allows across a full cohort. An always-available AI version of a mentor can absorb that repetition, leaving the live sessions for the parts of coaching that still need a person in the room.

The economics behind that shift are straightforward. A single instructor can sit across the table from a handful of founders in a given week, but an AI avatar built from that same instructor's voice, mannerisms, and expertise can run the identical exercise with dozens of students in parallel. That doesn't replace the instructor's judgment on the harder calls, but it does mean a founder no longer has to wait for office hours to run a pitch one more time before the real thing.

Foundry's approach fits a wider pattern spreading through executive and professional education, where programs are testing AI-driven simulation and feedback tools as a way to stretch limited faculty attention across more students without cutting the live instruction entirely. Whether that pattern holds up will depend on programs proving the AI layer improves outcomes rather than adding a novel selling point to the tuition bill.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.