Harvard HBS Foundry Bootcamp | AI Training for Founders

Inside Harvard's AI-Powered Startup Bootcamp

Harvard Business School recently launched HBS Foundry, an eight-week entrepreneurship course priced at $699. This program stands out because participants interact with AI avatars of actual Harvard professors instead of human instructors for routine guidance. The school designed the course to scale its startup training beyond the 900 MBA students it admits annually. It offers a structured path for new founders, covering every stage from initial concept to investor pitching.

Senior lecturer Jeff Bussgang is among the faculty members who provided their likenesses to the university. Students use the platform to rehearse sales calls, boardroom presentations, and pitches through these video simulations. While the technology might seem unusual, faculty members report that students respond to the tool with high engagement. The project serves as an attempt to bridge the gap between traditional academic instruction and the practical, often messy, requirements of starting a business.

Evolution of the HBS Foundry Platform

The development process for the platform started in 2024. Project director Katharina Rings explains that the team initially considered a basic chatbot interface. Trial runs in October revealed that founders wanted more guidance and a concrete framework for their projects. By April, the team released the current version. At least 760 founders have enrolled in the program since its public release.

Data collected by the university suggests users prefer interaction with specific, identified faculty clones over anonymous bots. This preference for personalization drove the decision to partner with HeyGen, an AI avatar production company. The success of these clones highlights a shift in how higher education institutions view scale. Educators like Harold Solomon, a principal at the Georgia Institute of Technology, have already integrated the HBS Foundry program into their own 12-week curricula to better serve larger cohorts of students.

The Role of Technology and Human Connection

Scaling education is a challenge for any institution. Professors are physically limited in the number of meetings they can conduct each week. By shifting routine feedback to AI simulations, faculty members gain time for more intensive live sessions. Tom Eisenmann, a faculty co-chair for the project, notes that the integration of digital tools does not replace the need for physical interaction. The program includes live weekly sessions to keep a human element at the core of the learning experience.

Founders participating in the course also gain access to peer community forums. These spaces allow participants to network and share challenges in real-time. Even as the university leans into high-tech simulations, the underlying value proposition remains grounded in the traditional networking and community building that defines business school education. For now, the program provides a scalable model that other universities watch closely as they look for ways to expand their own entrepreneurial offerings.