House Oversight chair questions Delaware's plan for AI-run companies

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer opened an inquiry into a Delaware proposal to create a corporate form run day to day by an AI agent. In a letter to Governor Matt Meyer dated 26 October, he asked for documents on the state’s efforts to establish the “Artificial Intelligence Company” (AIC), as soon as possible and no later than 9 November.

The proposal comes from Delaware’s own officials. In a Fortune op-ed, Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez and John Nay, chief executive of Norm Ai, described an AIC as “a separate legal entity whose day-to-day affairs are managed by an AI agent rather than a person”. It would have a single member, a person or entity, who must keep it adequately capitalised and would generally be shielded from its debts, except where the member underfunds it or uses it for fraud or wilful violation of law. The authors wrote that the shield exists “only inside the sandbox”, which would exclude banking, be overseen by an admission committee including the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, and end after 30 months so the General Assembly can review the results. Spotlight Delaware reported that the principal drafter, Richards, Layton & Finger lawyer John Mark Zeberkiewicz, said “Anything that a company can do, the AIC can do as a company”, and that a legislator on the sandbox subcommittee expected the General Assembly not to consider the bill until next year.

Comer’s letter, which the committee’s release summarises, says he is concerned the AIC “could be used to protect powerful AI companies and their investors from responsibility for reckless harmful actions”. He notes that the Delaware AI Commission’s two-page December 2025 report did not mention assessing safety, harms or risks, and cites a reported lack of clarity on who asked for the proposal and on the Secretary of State’s working relationship with an AI company contributing to it. The letter asks how Delaware has weighed the risks and what is driving it, and possibly other states, towards such proposals, to inform possible federal legislation “to appropriately limit state AI regulatory initiatives”.

That last point ties the inquiry to the wider fight over federal preemption of state AI law. Supporters of the sandbox, in Spotlight Delaware’s account, say it would show how autonomous businesses behave before permanent rules are written, and Patibanda-Sanchez has said formation fees could benefit state revenue.