Harvard Business School debuts $699 startup bootcamp taught by AI clones of its faculty

Harvard Business School Launches AI-Powered Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

Harvard Business School has introduced HBS Foundry, an eight-week entrepreneurship bootcamp priced at $699 that uses AI-generated clones of faculty to mentor aspiring founders1

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. The startup bootcamp features AI avatars of seven HBS professors and senior lecturers, allowing participants to practice investor pitches, sales calls, and board meetings repeatedly before facing real investors2

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. So far, 760 founders have participated in the program, which Harvard describes as an "AI-native digital workspace" for entrepreneurs1

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The program combines personalized mentorship from AI avatars with weekly live sessions led by experienced founders, investors, and Harvard Business School faculty. Participants can ultimately pitch to investors for up to $100,000 in funding1

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. Harvard has tested the product with more than 100 universities across 50 states, with about 45% of summer session founders paying individually while universities sponsored the rest2

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How AI Clones Work in HBS Foundry

Harvard Business School worked with AI avatar maker HeyGen to create digital versions of faculty members through dedicated interviews, recording sessions, testing, and ongoing feedback1

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. The AI avatars include Jeff Bussgang, co-founder of Flybridge Capital and a senior lecturer at HBS, whose digital counterpart can conduct video call simulations with founders2

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When a New York Times reporter tested the system by pitching an "Uber for bananas" idea to Bussgang's AI avatar, the digital version responded calmly but remained unconvinced, though its slightly repetitive movements revealed its artificial nature5

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. The real Bussgang acknowledged the simulation is "creepy" but emphasized that "my students love it"2

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Katharina Rings, Foundry's director, explained that "the idea for the AI experiences came from founders themselves, who wanted opportunities to practice and be challenged before getting in front of mentors and investors"1

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. Testing revealed that simply adding a photo of a professor to an AI chatbot increased engagement significantly2

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Scale Entrepreneurship Education Beyond Campus

The HBS Foundry program aims to extend entrepreneurial support beyond the approximately 900 MBA students Harvard admits annually2

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. The initiative targets "high-potential founders wherever they are, including people who may never study at Harvard or have access to the networks and resources of a major innovation ecosystem"1

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Harold Solomon, a principal at Georgia Tech's entrepreneurship program Quadrant-i, explained the advantage: "I can have 20, 30 meetings a week, but beyond that, I literally can't. We can't service the class, let alone the campus, in person constantly. So we need a way to scale"2

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. Solomon incorporated the HBS Foundry program into a 12-week entrepreneurship course at Georgia Tech this summer4

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Founders report positive experiences with the AI-driven educational experiment. Dragana Savic, who raised more than $1 million for her company INIA Biosciences, said: "You can really hash out things before you actually enter a situation like that. It's a good way to practice"3

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AI in Education Raises Questions About Human Interaction

The startup bootcamp represents a growing trend of universities experimenting with AI avatars in education. Georgia Tech previously deployed AI teaching assistant Jill Watson across large online classes, while Imperial Business School created digital twins of professors1

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. Last year, Georgia Tech professor David Joyner created "DAI-vid," an AI avatar of himself for an online generative AI course on edX1

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However, the approach raises questions about what AI can and cannot replicate. Kian Katanforoosh, a Stanford lecturer and founder of AI skills platform Workera, noted that while AI "can replicate many of the things professors do repeatedly" like answering unlimited questions, it "cannot fully replicate knowing a student as a person"1

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. He explained that a professor can recognize potential, inspire students, and make introductions based on years of human interaction, adding: "AI can simulate some of these behaviors, but today it cannot put its own reputation at stake or genuinely care what happens next"1

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Shikhar Ghosh, one of the cloned HBS professors, emphasized: "The goal isn't to create a substitute for me. It's to give founders another way to prepare and challenge their thinking, so that when we do come together live, we can spend more of that valuable time on the questions where human judgment and conversation matter most"1

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Tom Eisenmann, faculty co-chair for the project, noted that despite the AI avatars, community forums have emerged as one of the platform's biggest draws, with founders connecting directly with other entrepreneurs. "They're using the AI; they're learning a lot. But it keeps coming back to humanity"4

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. The digital workspace deliberately programmed the AI to be challenging rather than obsequious, with virtually no startup ideas receiving approval on the first attempt2

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For Harvard Business School, this AI-driven experiment tests whether scalable mentorship through technology can democratize access to elite entrepreneurship education without undermining the value of personalized mentorship and human connection that students expect from premium educational experiences.