Harvard Business School uses AI avatars to simulate professor interactions

Harvard Business School has launched HBS Foundry, an eight-week online program for entrepreneurs that utilizes AI-generated digital avatars of professors. Created by the American company HeyGen, these avatars allow students to practice real-world business scenarios, such as pitching to investors, making sales calls, or participating in board meetings, at any time of day.

The initiative includes digital replicas of seven professors. One such example is David Shrier, a faculty member at both Harvard and Imperial College London, whose avatar was trained using over half a million words of his writings and materials. This technology has enabled Shrier to expand his teaching capacity from 78 to 200 students.

Katharina Rings, director of the initiative, noted that the avatars help mitigate the feeling that AI is an anonymous “black box” by providing a recognizable human face to the interaction. While the technology has reportedly been tested in over 100 universities, experts suggest caution as long-term studies on whether these digital replicas improve actual learning outcomes are still needed.