Harvard Business School has begun using AI-generated video avatars of its instructors to give individual feedback to students in its new $699, eight-week "HBS Foundry" entrepreneurship bootcamp. The avatars, built by startup HeyGen, respond to students during practice pitches and mock board meetings, supplementing weekly live sessions with real teaching staff, as the school looks to scale its coaching capacity to a much wider audience than traditional in-person programmes allow.

A New York Times reporter tested the system by pitching an AI-generated version of Flybridge Capital co-founder Jeff Bussgang, prompting a lukewarm response from both the real and virtual Bussgang, alongside a noticeably "frozen smile" from the avatar. Programme director Katharina Rings said she originally envisaged a simpler chatbot-style tool, but shifted to the more guided avatar format after trial users asked for it. Despite some scepticism elsewhere about AI in education, Foundry participants reportedly like the avatars, and Bussgang himself admitted his digital double is "a little creepy" but said his students are fans.