Harvard's AI Avatars: Scaling Prestige Through Synthetic Mentorship

When it comes to the creator economy, the ultimate product is expertise. Now, Harvard Business School is testing whether that expertise can be decoupled from the human expert and scaled via a subscription-style model.

As TechCrunch first reported, Harvard Business School has integrated AI avatars into its HBS Foundry, an eight-week startup bootcamp priced at $699. While the program maintains weekly live sessions with instructors, the heavy lifting of individual feedback—specifically during board meetings and practice pitches—has been shifted to AI simulacra created by the startup HeyGen.

This shift represents a pivot in pedagogical delivery. Project director Katharina Rings told TechCrunch that the AI component was originally conceived as a chatbot, but the school shifted to avatars after students requested a more guided experience.

The efficacy of these digital twins varies by perspective. Sarah Kessler, a reporter for the New York Times, tested the system by pitching a business plan for "Uber for bananas" to an AI version of Jeff Bussgang, the co-founder of Flybridge Capital. Kessler noted that while both the human Bussgang and his AI counterpart were unimpressed by the pitch, the virtual version maintained a "noticeably frozen smile."

Despite the uncanny valley, the monetization of this prestige seems to be working. Bussgang admitted to TechCrunch that his digital copy is somewhat "creepy," but noted that his students love the tool. This suggests a willingness among paying participants to trade authentic human mentorship for the scalable, on-demand feedback of a high-status AI avatar.