Are University Lectures Being Delivered By A.I. ? - August 28, 2026

Do Bot Profs Lead To Bot Students?

I recently read an article in the New York Times about Harvard Business School (“HBS”) delivering an online entrepreneurship bootcamp where A.I.- generated avatars or digital clones of HBS faculty or senior lecturers were interacting with the bootcamp participants.  This had me wondering if delivering lectures/classes with A.I. avatars was now a common practice at universities and colleges.  And, that got me thinking about how students would feel about being lectured by A.I. bots.  

With this premise I did some research into how prevalent A.I. delivered lectures were. And, I’m fortunate to have several nieces, nephews and children of friends who are university students whom I could ask about this, to conduct an informal survey.  Here’s what I found out:

Are Lectures Being Delivered By A.I. at Harvard? 

The example cited above was a specific program delivered by HBS to startup founders, focused on helping them launch their business ideas.  The A.I. avatars would engage with the would-be entrepreneurs, offering critiques of the company presentations, and they would simulate interactions with investors, board members and customers.  This specific program still offered sessions with human instructors.  And, while this story may have been the impetus for this writing, we’re told in the news story that Harvard did not intend to replace its professors with A.I. avatars.  

HBS claims the A.I. avatars are being used to provide “personalized mentorship”.  According to another article in Fortune magazine, seven HBS professors/senior lecturers were cloned for the program, with approximately 760 founders having participated. HBS itself describes the program as an "AI-native digital workspace" designed to extend the school's reach to entrepreneurs. The dean of HBS, Srikant Datar, has said that HBS is using A.I. to "extend our reach and deepen our impact."  So, Harvard's intent here was to connect with more students/entrepreneurs than they could using only human lecturers.   

Are A.I. Lecturers Being Used Broadly?

My research shows that using A.I. avatars for lectures or classroom sessions is still a rare occurrence today.  As we would expect, students are using A.I. quite a bit to help with their studies, and professors/instructors are using A.I. to prepare course materials to be given to students, but the lectures themselves are being delivered by humans for the most part.

Having said that, George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia has experimented with A.I. avatars presenting course material in short on-demand videos. The feedback received from students was that they liked the A.I. avatars as supplemental material, but still preferred  humans teaching the course.  

At the University of California, Irvine, an undergraduate science course experimented with A.I.-generated videos using an avatar of the course instructor. Students received short videos connecting lecture topics to broader societal issues. This example has A.I. being used as a supplementary tool, and not replacing the human lecturer.

And at Case Western Reserve University, the School of Management has created A.I. "digital twins" of four professors that can interact with students.  The A.I. twins were trained on material from the professors' past publications, lectures and courses, allowing the avatars to answer questions in the professors' areas of expertise.  A human professor continues to teach the actual course/lectures, while the A.I.  avatar provides an interactive, on-demand representation of the professor outside the conventional lecture, as a supplement to the human professor. 

In 2025, Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia ran a university-level theology course in which the professor provided a manuscript of their class lectures to an A.I. application,  which then generated lecture videos using an A.I. avatar. The professor did not record himself for the lectures. Acadia had the students watch the lectures delivered by A.I. avatar before class, with classroom time devoted to discussion and interaction with the human professor.  In this example, the professor's role wasn't eliminated. He created the intellectual content and remained engaged directly with the students and the course. 

This last example brings up an interesting question…would it be ok for A.I. avatars to present the lectures, to be viewed outside of class time, with the class time being used for Q & A, or deeper discussions with the professors…something that may otherwise be limited because of the need to get through the lecture material?  

But do students want A.I. bots delivering their lecturers or classroom sessions? 

In polling university students on whether they wanted lectures or any classroom sessions given by A.I. avatars, the answer consistently was, “Hell No!”.  Below is a cut n’ paste of the survey response I received from a small sample of current university students: 

Survey Responses:

Response #1:

- AI lectures may be ok for large lower year classes like Psych 101

- But for upper year classes & for small universities it’s more important to have a human being in the classroom 

- We all remember how boring & impersonal online classes were during Covid, and this feels it could be worse

- I want interaction and discussion, to be able to speak with the professor after class, and during office hours (how would that work?)

- Kids need to learn social skills in academic settings; building human connections is important, and learning to network is important. They need interactive discussion, hearing anecdotes, stories, and individual experiences from the instructor.”

Side-note: this respondent studied psychology in undergrad, and is now studying clinical mental health counselling in grad school.

Response #2:

“On this, yes AI will never be as good as the best teacher … but it can be much better than most teachers. Then many kids who are struggling with average teachers will get personalized, very good attention - maybe not “exceptional”, but “very good”. “

Response #3:

“online classes r entirely ineffective IN MY OPINION because it relies on the student to do most of the heavy lifting and pre lecture readings and blah blah blah... that's unrealistic. kids aren't gonna do that. i didn't do it. i know i wouldn't pay attention if i was being taught by a bot, i'd be on my phone. no one's watching me to tell me off. bot teachers = bot students “

Response #4:

Personally, probably not. I’ve seen AI make mistakes for students when asking difficult engineering questions, which they then come to me with and I have to report that they shouldn’t ask everything to AI. Also, I think my students need a bit of human contact.  I think it’s important for them to see the personality that I have and have an opportunity to connect with me on a human level.  

Side-note: this respondent is a PhD student who teaches classes as part of her program.

Response #5:

“At college I often would have AI make lecture notes and read from them as a much faster alternative to going to class. That being said, I’m not sure why I’d ever have an avatar for the AI teach to me? If you’re learning from AI why would you need a face or other avatar to go with it. 

I’d say I’d be 50/50 it definitely shouldn’t be delivered in entirety but it could be an interesting addition to maybe explain homework that an AI is trained on”

Response #6:

I wouldn’t be comfortable with that for two reasons. First, u want to know a person has vetted the information and will be available to answer questions we have. I don’t want an algorithm deciding how to respond to us. Second, students are generally not allowed to use AI to submit our work. It would be a double standard if faculty could use it for theirs. 

Side-note: this respondent is a law school student, where the program has rules against using A.I.

Based on the responses received from this informal survey, today’s university students could see some use of A.I. in developing course material, but they definitely don’t want their learning to be delivered by A.I. They want human interaction with a knowledgeable and experienced lecturer.  It was interesting to note that some of the survey respondents equated lectures being delivered by A.I. to the same horrible experience they had when they had to attend classes online during Covid.  Students want to learn in-person, from humans. 

The Final Word

Writing this article got me thinking more about when and how we develop our critical thinking skills. For our youth and young adults, the periods of high school and a post-secondary education are extremely important for the development of their judgement, logic and common sense; all of which are aspects of critical thinking skills.   As you’ve likely noted from my prior articles, I have expressed concern that too much dependence by our youth and young adults on A.I., too early, will adversely impact the development of these much needed skills. So, I’m glad to see that today’s students don’t want to be taught by A.I. and still value the human interaction that a post-secondary education brings.  And, I’m glad to learn that universities and colleges haven’t yet sacrificed the proper skills development of our youth, by tossing aside human instructors for A.I. avatars, in the name of cost savings or operational efficiencies.  

If we reach a point where an A.I. avatar can deliver a better lecture, answer every question and personalize the material better than the average human professor, should we replace the professor with a bot? The answer is still, definitely not!  Universities aren't only places where information is delivered. They are a place for our youth and young adults to learn how to think, debate, challenge ideas, read social cues, build relationships and interact with other people. 

Thanks for reading.  

Are you a university or college student, or the parent of one? We’d like to hear from you on this subject.  Tell us what you think, using the Comments button below.