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AI & Tech

Harvard Adds AI Avatars to a $699 Founder Bootcamp

Nic Reeve3 min read
Harvard Adds AI Avatars to a $699 Founder Bootcamp

Harvard Business School has put an artificial-intelligence twist on entrepreneurship training, rolling out a new eight-week startup bootcamp that pairs live instruction with AI-generated instructor avatars. The program, known as HBS Foundry, costs $699 and is designed to give aspiring founders more personalized feedback during pitch practice and simulated board meetings.

According to reporting from TechCrunch, the course uses avatars built by AI video platform HeyGen to mimic instructors and respond during exercises such as practice pitches and boardroom scenarios. The weekly live sessions are still led by real teachers, but the AI avatars are intended to extend the feedback students receive between those classes.

The idea reflects a broader push by business schools and online learning platforms to make startup education more scalable without losing the feel of individualized coaching. In this case, Harvard is trying to blend human-led teaching with digital replicas that can deliver critiques in a format similar to a live conversation.

The bootcamp is part of Harvard Business School’s effort to reach founders beyond its traditional degree programs. HBS Foundry is aimed at entrepreneurs who want practical guidance on shaping and testing ideas, refining their pitches and preparing for investor-style questioning. By using AI avatars, the program attempts to offer more frequent and accessible feedback than a standard classroom model might allow.

CryptoRank’s coverage highlighted the novelty of the setup, and the story quickly spread across tech and startup media because of the contrast between Harvard’s elite brand and the mass-market feel of a $699 online bootcamp. The price point is notably lower than the cost of many executive education offerings, which makes the course more accessible to early-stage founders and operators.

The use of AI avatars also raises questions that are now common across education and corporate training: how well can synthetic instructors capture the nuance of a seasoned mentor, and where is the line between useful automation and imitation? In this program, the avatars are not replacing live faculty altogether, but they are taking on a role that traditionally depends on one-on-one human interaction.

HeyGen, the company behind the avatars, has been positioning itself as a tool for AI-powered video creation and presentation workflows. In Harvard’s bootcamp, its technology is being used for a more specific purpose: simulating instructor feedback in a startup-training environment. That makes the course one of the more visible examples so far of generative AI moving from demo use cases into formal education.

The broader significance lies in what Harvard is signaling about the future of teaching entrepreneurship. If AI avatars can reliably provide structured feedback on pitches, board meetings and founder communication, similar systems could be adopted by other schools, accelerators and corporate training programs. If they fall short, the experiment will still serve as a useful test of how far AI can go in roles that depend on judgment, tone and mentorship.

For now, HBS Foundry stands out less as a replacement for professors than as a hybrid model that uses software to extend their reach. That combination of live instruction and AI-driven personalization is likely to draw attention from founders looking for practical training — and from educators watching how far the technology can be pushed.

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Claude 4.8 Leak and Gemini 3.5 in Arena Shake Up the AI Model Race
AI & Tech

Claude 4.8 Leak and Gemini 3.5 in Arena Shake Up the AI Model Race

A major leak involving Anthropic’s unreleased Claude Sonnet 4.8 , fresh speculation around a new Claude “Cardinal” model family, and the quiet arrival of Google’s Gemini 3.5 variants in the popular LMSYS Arena benchmark have turned this week into a flashpoint for AI watchers, analysts, and creators following channels like Jaylin Williams’ AI news series. Claude Sonnet 4.8: What the Leak Really Reveals The story of Claude Sonnet 4.8 begins with a packaging mistake in Anthropic’s @anthropic-ai/claude-code npm library. Developers discovered that a 59.8 MB source‑map file had been accidentally published as part of a March 31, 2026 update, exposing roughly 512,000 lines of internal TypeScript and 1,900+ source files tied to the Claude Code product. Although no customer data, credentials, or live systems were compromised, the debug bundle included internal references that were never meant to be public. Among those references was a string for “sonnet-4-8” , listed in an internal “forbidden strings” or Undercover Mode filter intended to block engineers from accidentally mentioning unreleased model versions in logs, UI text, or commit messages. The same list reportedly included “opus-4-7” and codenames like “mythos” , hinting at a broader roadmap for Anthropic’s flagship Claude family. Crucially, what leaked was infrastructure code and configuration , not a model checkpoint or weights. There was no public model card, no API documentation for a Sonnet 4.8 endpoint, and no benchmark tables. That means the only hard fact confirmed by the leak is that Anthropic uses a Sonnet 4.8 version string internally in its tooling, and that the company is at least planning or testing a new generation of the mid‑tier Sonnet line. Nonetheless, the episode sparked intense speculation. Some posts circulating in the AI community claimed improvements such as a double‑digit boost on coding benchmarks, large jumps in vision accuracy, and new background “agent” capabilities for longer‑running tasks. While these claims appear to be based on references in the debug code and extrapolation from recent Claude 4.x releases, none of it has been confirmed by Anthropic. As of mid‑August 2026, there is still no official release of Claude Sonnet 4.8 via the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, or Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. Anthropic has characterized the event as a human packaging error , asked for the removal of thousands of mirrored copies of the bundle from public repositories, and has not committed publicly to shipping a model under the Sonnet 4.8 label. Anthropic’s Model Codenames: Cardinal, Capybara, and Beyond The same discussion around Sonnet 4.8 has drawn attention to Anthropic’s growing web of internal codenames for its Claude models. Earlier analyses of the leaked Claude Code source have identified names such as Fennec (associated with an Opus 4.6‑class model), Capybara (linked to an experimental tier reportedly positioned above Opus in capability), and Numbat for models still in testing. In this context, community chatter about a line tentatively labeled Claude “Cardinal” has intensified. While details remain sparse, commentators describe Cardinal as a potential new family or sub‑tier that could sit between existing Sonnet and Opus offerings, or as an internal branch focused on tools, coding, and persistent agents. At this stage, Cardinal appears more as an inferred codename and roadmap hint than a shipping product with a public model card. Anthropic’s deliberate silence reinforces a pattern the company has followed in previous cycles: internal version strings and codenames often appear in tooling and leaks months before any formal announcement. The presence of names like Sonnet 4.8 or Cardinal in code does not guarantee that these models will launch under those exact labels, or even that all of them will reach public release. Gemini 3.5 Steps Into the Arena While Anthropic grapples with the fallout from its source‑map leak, Google’s latest models are making waves in a very different way: by showing up in LMSYS’s Chatbot Arena , the crowdsourced benchmark that pits large language models against each other in blind, head‑to‑head comparisons. Over recent weeks, new variants labeled along the lines of Gemini 3.5 have appeared on the Arena leaderboard. Though Arena typically uses anonymized identifiers for models in active blind tests, enough metadata and performance trends have emerged for observers to tie several strong‑performing entrants to Google’s newest Gemini generation. Early community impressions suggest that Gemini 3.5 maintains or improves on Gemini 1.5’s long‑context and multimodal strengths, while focusing on tighter instruction‑following and better coding performance. In many blind Arena matchups, users report that the 3.5‑class models feel more responsive for everyday chat and reasoning tasks, with competitive results against top‑end systems from Anthropic and OpenAI. Because Chatbot Arena relies on voluntary, crowdsourced votes, its rankings do not carry the same weight as formal academic benchmarks. However, the leaderboard has become an important real‑world signal of how models behave in the wild, capturing qualitative factors such as style, clarity, and robustness that are harder to summarize in a single numeric score. How Creators Are Covering the Shifts The rapid sequence of developments—leaks, codenames, and new benchmark entries—has given AI‑focused creators ample material. Among them is Jaylin Williams , whose AI news content (including the episode referenced in the Mshale listing) aggregates stories such as the Claude Sonnet 4.8 leak , the rumored Claude Cardinal line, and the arrival of Gemini 3.5 in Arena into digestible updates for developers and enthusiasts. In these roundups, creators typically emphasize three themes: Escalating competition among frontier models, as Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI iterate at a rapid pace and use both official launches and quiet evaluations in public benchmarks to test capabilities. Opacity and leaks as recurring issues, with internal tools and debug artifacts becoming unexpected windows into company roadmaps long before formal communication. Practical impact on users , from developers wondering when they can actually access Sonnet 4.8‑class performance to businesses evaluating whether to build around Claude, Gemini, or a mix of providers. What to Watch Next Looking ahead, the key questions for users and observers are straightforward. Will Anthropic officially announce a Sonnet 4.8 or Cardinal model in the coming months, and if so, how will it be positioned against Opus and rival systems from Google and OpenAI? Will the capabilities hinted at in internal code—ranging from stronger coding and vision performance to more persistent agents—translate into accessible, production‑ready features? On Google’s side, all eyes are on how quickly the Gemini 3.5 line moves from Arena experiments and limited rollouts into broad availability across Google Cloud and consumer products. Any shift in pricing, context length, or fine‑tuning options could reshape how startups and enterprises choose between providers. For now, the landscape is marked by contrast: Anthropic’s unintended leak offers a glimpse into where Claude may be heading, while Google’s Gemini 3.5 seeks validation in open competition. Together, they signal an AI ecosystem where product roadmaps are increasingly visible—not just through press releases, but through code, codenames, and the collective judgment of users putting these systems to the test.

Nic Reeve·
AInews: M&T Bank’s Tech Reboot Sets Stage for Enterprise‑Wide AI Rollout
AI & Tech

AInews: M&T Bank’s Tech Reboot Sets Stage for Enterprise‑Wide AI Rollout

On September 2, 2026, M&T Bank confirmed that it has deployed AI copilots and other enterprise tools to more than 15,000 employees as part of a broad expansion of enterprise artificial intelligence, capping a technology overhaul that began in 2018 and positioning the bank as a regional leader in data‑driven operations. How large is M&T Bank’s enterprise AI rollout? M&T Bank’s enterprise AI rollout now reaches the majority of its workforce. According to Yahoo Finance in September 2026, the bank has deployed AI copilots to over 15,000 employees, while Forbes reports that around 16,000 staff actively use generative AI tools for daily work as of August 2026. The expansion of AI tools inside M&T Bank is now one of the largest documented deployments in a U.S. regional bank. Key figures include: According to Forbes, August 2026: approximately 16,000 employees use generative AI tools across the enterprise. According to Yahoo Finance, September 2026: AI copilots support more than 15,000 employees in tasks such as call analysis, report drafting and code generation. According to ArtificialIntelligence‑News, September 2026: initial pilots involved about 800 employees before scaling across the organization. According to AIM Media House, December 2025: Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat had been rolled out to roughly 17,000 employees by early 2025. Most of these tools run on Microsoft’s Copilot suite, delivered through M&T Bank’s modernized cloud and data architecture. Staff now access generative models through Office applications, internal chat interfaces and embedded features in existing business systems. What concrete AI use cases are live inside M&T Bank? M&T Bank is using enterprise AI in internal operations, risk management, software development and commercial credit monitoring, rather than front‑end customer interactions. These use cases combine Microsoft Copilot with specialist platforms from vendors like RDC.AI and Rich Data Co. According to Yahoo Finance and ArtificialIntelligence‑News, the current internal and risk‑oriented applications include: Analyzing call‑center conversations to identify customer needs and emerging portfolio risks. Drafting reports, internal communications and meeting summaries for employees across departments. Generating and reviewing software code to accelerate development and maintenance work. Spotting potential fraud patterns and strengthening cybersecurity monitoring. Beyond copilots, M&T has introduced domain‑specific AI platforms in commercial credit: According to the Banking Tech Awards USA showcase, May 2026: M&T Bank partnered with RDC.AI in 2025 to replace manual, rules‑based commercial credit monitoring with an AI‑driven continuous monitoring platform. The same source notes the platform supports over 1,200 relationship managers and credit associates, providing automated alerts on borrower risk and portfolio exposure. AIM Media House reports that M&T is also integrating Rich Data Co.’s decisioning platform via vendor nCino, and adopting Amperity’s customer data cloud to unify interactions and tailor communications across channels. These tools sit on top of the bank’s controlled data environment rather than feeding directly into unsupervised decisioning. What technology overhaul enabled M&T Bank’s current AI expansion? M&T Bank’s push into large‑scale AI follows a multi‑year effort to fix data and legacy systems first. The bank began a broad technology overhaul around 2018, rebuilding its data governance, cloud architecture and application landscape to support modern analytics and regulated AI adoption. Forbes describes how M&T “built a strong data foundation” in Buffalo that now underpins dozens of generative AI use cases across three pathways: enterprise fluency, embedded capabilities in existing applications and proprietary models. Key elements of that foundation include: According to Forbes, May 2025: an expanding portfolio of cloud‑based data products and ongoing retirement of legacy platforms. According to CDO Magazine, December 2025: a medallion architecture layered over cloud‑enabled data products, with clear accountability at each layer. According to Portfolio by BISA, September 2025: a central data repository called Edison, supported by lineage tools from Solidatus and Monte Carlo to track data movement. According to Windows Forum reporting, March 2026: a centralized cloud data strategy designed to create a unified “Customer 360” view and reduce reconciliation overhead by decommissioning legacy analytics tools. M&T Bank’s Chief Data Officer Andrew Foster has emphasized that trusted data is the prerequisite for generative AI. Portfolio by BISA quotes him saying that reliable lineage and governance are essential to controlling operational, compliance and reputational risk as AI use scales. How does M&T Bank govern data and AI across such a large deployment? M&T Bank has built AI governance on top of its data controls rather than treating it as a separate exercise. The bank uses a federated data model, medallion architecture and strict lineage tooling, and sequences AI projects to follow maturity in oversight and risk management. AIM Media House describes a stepwise blueprint for AI adoption at M&T Bank: Reset data governance, lineage and controls before major AI pilots. Run six‑month proofs of concept with tools like Microsoft Copilot before enterprise rollout. Deploy internal copilots widely, while keeping customer‑facing applications limited and heavily supervised. Layer in domain‑specific AI, such as commercial credit monitoring and customer‑data platforms, only where oversight frameworks are mature. Portfolio by BISA reports that Edison and lineage platforms help the bank trace data sources for AI outputs, supporting internal audits and regulator reviews. Windows Forum’s analysis of Western New York banks highlights M&T’s published AI policies, inventory of models and continuous monitoring with alerts for drift and anomalies as part of its risk controls. Which employees and business units are most affected by M&T Bank’s AI expansion? M&T Bank’s AI deployment affects office staff, technologists and risk professionals far more than frontline customers. Copilot access is wide across corporate functions, while specialized platforms target commercial credit teams and analytics groups using the bank’s cloud data environment. Based on reports from Yahoo Finance, Forbes and AIM Media House, the main groups using new AI tools include: Customer service and call‑center agents, who use AI to summarize calls and identify next‑best actions. Operations staff, who rely on copilots to draft emails, reports and meeting notes. Software engineers and technology teams, where copilots assist with coding, documentation and troubleshooting. Risk managers and credit associates, who use RDC.AI’s commercial credit monitoring platform. Marketing and analytics teams, who work with Amperity’s customer data cloud and Rich Data Co’s decisioning tools to refine targeting and product offers. AIM Media House quotes M&T’s data leadership stressing that the bank is “not going to the customer‑facing side yet” for broad generative AI use, underscoring a decision to focus on staff productivity and risk insights before AI touches customer decisions directly. What strategy guides M&T Bank’s AI investments and future plans? M&T Bank’s AI strategy combines three main pathways: expanding enterprise fluency, embedding AI into existing applications and building proprietary models using the bank’s own data, all within a regulated and inspection‑ready environment. Forbes reports that the three pathways are: Enterprise fluency, where around 16,000 employees experiment with generative tools to improve productivity and learn their capabilities. Embedded capabilities inside roughly 1,800 applications, many sourced from third‑party vendors, where targeted AI features support tasks like document review and risk scoring. Proprietary development of large language model and agentic solutions built around M&T’s data and processes. ArtificialIntelligence‑News reports that Chief Data Officer Andrew Foster and his team articulated a similar framework: general employee use of generative AI, AI embedded in existing systems and custom solutions aligned with M&T’s distinctive workflows. Forbes and CDO Magazine both describe a “slow to go fast” approach, in which careful groundwork in data, governance and culture enables faster scaling once controls are proven. Looking ahead, public comments and award submissions point to several likely next steps: According to Forbes, May 2025: continued expansion of cloud‑based data products and retirement of legacy platforms as AI demand grows. According to the Banking Tech Awards USA entry, May 2026: deeper integration of continuous AI monitoring in commercial credit, including new analytical measures of portfolio resilience. According to Yahoo Finance, September 2026: exploration of agentic AI for cybersecurity and fraud detection, building on existing detection use cases. How does M&T Bank’s AI journey compare with other regional banks? M&T Bank now stands out among regional banks in Western New York for its focus on centralized data strategy and broad internal AI adoption, while peers such as Five Star Bank are documented as concentrating on AI in specific product lines like indirect auto lending. Windows Forum summaries of local coverage describe two tracks in the region: M&T Bank invests in cloud data architecture, governed customer insights and large‑scale employee access to generative tools. Five Star Bank applies AI more narrowly to product‑level automation and credit decisioning, with smaller deployments. These comparisons show that M&T Bank is using its size and long technology overhaul to treat AI as a company‑wide capability rather than an isolated experiment, emphasizing data discipline and internal fluency before aggressive customer‑facing innovation.

Nic Reeve·
XPENG Scores Record Funding to Fast-Track IRON Humanoid Robot
AI & Tech

XPENG Scores Record Funding to Fast-Track IRON Humanoid Robot

Chinese automaker and robotics player XPENG has raised more than US$900 million for its humanoid robotics business, setting a new record for a single private financing round in China’s fast‑growing embodied or “physical AI” sector. The capital will accelerate development and mass production of the company’s flagship humanoid robot, IRON , and push XPENG’s robotics arm toward global commercialization from 2027. Landmark funding round values robotics unit at over $6.3 billion XPENG announced on 24 August 2026 that its carved‑out robotics business has signed equity financing agreements with a group of prominent investors, securing over US$900 million in its first external funding round at a post‑money valuation above US$6.3 billion . The company describes the deal as the largest single private‑equity raise to date in China’s embodied AI industry, underscoring how quickly capital is flowing into robots that can interact with the physical world. The round is led by IDG Capital , with participation from Chinese venture firm Gaorong Ventures and strategic backing from internet heavyweights Tencent and Alibaba . XPENG will retain control of the robotics unit, which encompasses the IRON humanoid platform as well as quadruped and other general‑purpose robot systems. Funding aimed at scaling IRON and XPENG’s physical AI stack XPENG says the fresh capital will be used across the full stack of what it calls physical AI —embodied intelligence that connects large‑scale AI models to real‑world robotic hardware. Priority areas include: Hardware and software R&D for humanoid and other general‑purpose robots. Training and iteration of physical AI models , including perception, planning and control systems for complex, unstructured environments. High‑quality data collection from simulations and real‑world deployments to refine the robots’ capabilities. End‑to‑end mass‑production facilities , enabling high‑volume manufacturing of IRON units. Global commercial expansion , with an eye on both domestic Chinese and overseas markets from 2027 onward. Industry observers note that the combination of large‑scale AI training, advanced mechatronics and automotive‑grade manufacturing is becoming a central competitive battleground as companies race to turn humanoid robots from research projects into commercial products. Inside IRON: XPENG’s next‑generation humanoid XPENG first unveiled the next‑generation IRON humanoid robot in late 2025. The system is designed as a general‑purpose platform capable of operating in environments such as factories, logistics hubs, retail spaces and eventually public settings. Key disclosed specifications for IRON include: 76 degrees of freedom (DoF) across the body, allowing fluid whole‑body motion. 21 DoF per hand , enabling fine manipulation tasks such as grasping tools, handling packages or operating controls. Onboard compute powered by three in‑house “Turing” AI chips , delivering up to 2,250 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) to run perception and control models locally. This technical configuration is intended to support complex tasks with low latency and limited reliance on cloud connectivity, a key requirement for industrial settings and safety‑critical applications. XPENG frames IRON as a general‑purpose platform that can be upgraded through software and model updates over time. From prototype to production: mass rollout targeted from 2026 XPENG plans to begin mass production of IRON by the end of 2026 . The company has already announced a dedicated humanoid robot manufacturing base in Guangzhou, set to support large‑scale production. Earlier guidance from XPENG executives and robotics analysts pointed to a target of more than 1,000 IRON units per month once the factory reaches steady‑state output. Initial deployments are expected at XPENG’s own retail stores and industrial campuses , where the company can tightly control operating conditions and use IRON as both a customer‑facing showcase and an internal productivity tool. Use cases may include greeting visitors, demonstrating vehicle functions, performing inventory checks, or handling repetitive tasks within warehouses and production lines. XPENG aims to move from internal pilots to commercial sales and deliveries in 2027 , first in China and then in overseas markets. The newly raised funding is intended to bridge the gap between prototype demonstrations and sustained commercial deployment at scale. XPENG positions itself as a “physical AI” leader The record‑setting round solidifies XPENG’s ambition to position itself not only as an electric vehicle manufacturer but also as a leading physical AI company. By carving out its robotics arm and securing external capital while retaining control, XPENG is following a playbook similar to other major technology companies that spin off high‑growth divisions to sharpen focus and unlock value. In corporate statements, XPENG highlights that the size of the funding and the valuation achieved reflect investors’ confidence in its technology roadmap, manufacturing capabilities and long‑term business prospects in embodied AI. The company has previously outlined multiyear investment plans totaling tens of billions of dollars to build up its robotics ecosystem, spanning chips, algorithms, cloud infrastructure and factory capacity. Competitive landscape and strategic implications XPENG’s IRON project is part of a broader global race to bring humanoid robots into mainstream commercial use. Automakers and technology firms in the United States, Europe and Asia are all investing heavily in humanoid platforms, banking on synergies between autonomous driving, robotics and AI infrastructure. In China, XPENG’s record round raises the stakes for local rivals in both the robotics and EV sectors. The participation of Tencent and Alibaba signals that major internet platforms view physical AI as a strategic frontier that could reshape logistics, retail and cloud‑based AI services. For XPENG, the backing of such partners could pave the way for deep integrations between IRON and digital ecosystems spanning payments, e‑commerce and consumer apps. Analysts say the key challenges ahead will include ensuring safety and reliability in real‑world deployments, driving down unit costs through manufacturing scale, and proving clear productivity gains for early customers. If XPENG can deliver on its timelines—mass production in 2026 and commercial rollout in 2027—the IRON humanoid could become one of the first large‑scale, general‑purpose humanoid platforms on the market, and the latest funding round suggests that investors are betting heavily on that outcome.

Nic Reeve·