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Key Takeaways Harvard Business School launched a new course called HBS Foundry.
The eight-week entrepreneurship bootcamp allows students to talk to AI avatars of Harvard professors.
The program takes participants step by step through launching a company, from sharpening an idea to pitching investors and customers.
At first glance, Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeff Bussgang looks normal on the screen. He is smiling and eager to listen to a student’s startup idea in a video call.
But there’s a catch. The student isn’t speaking to Bussgang; they are talking to his AI video avatar. Bussgang is one of several Harvard faculty members who have agreed to let the university use their AI clones as part of a new eight-week entrepreneurship bootcamp. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Harvard has tested the $699 course, called HBS Foundry, with more than 100 universities across the country.
The real Bussgang told the Times that he knows the simulation is a little “creepy.” Still, “my students love it,” he said.
HBS Foundry aims to expand entrepreneurship education beyond the 900 MBA students Harvard admits every year.
The program takes participants step by step through launching a company, from sharpening an idea to pitching investors and customers. The virtual platform combines HBS materials with a peer community and AI tools.
Participants can also practice pitches, sales calls and boardroom scenarios in video call simulations with AI avatars, including one modeled on Bussgang.
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