House Oversight Chair Comer Probes Delaware Plan for AI-Run Companies

What it claims

House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is investigating Delaware's Artificial Intelligence Company (AIC), a proposed entity run day-to-day by an AI agent. Comer's letter says the AIC could shield "powerful AI companies and their investors" from liability and enable "anticompetitive regulatory capture." The committee says the documents it seeks could inform federal legislation, including proposals to limit state AI regulatory initiatives. The request covers all AIC documents and communications since January 2025, agreements with outside contributors, safety records and every draft of the proposal.

How it works

Delaware Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez and John Nay, CEO of legal AI firm Norm Ai, presented the AIC in a Fortune op-ed in July 2026. They described it as a public-private partnership led by Norm Ai. Under the proposal, an AIC:

• can sue and be sued, hold property and take on obligations at its AI agent's direction;
• has a single member who must keep it adequately capitalized;
• shields that member from its debts unless the member fails to capitalize it, uses it for fraud or commits a willful violation of law;
• must disclose its AIC status to counterparties;
• is barred from banking;
• operates only inside a 30-month sandbox overseen by a committee of state officials and outside experts.

The authors argue that giving AI "legal form" makes an autonomous system's conduct "visible, traceable, and accountable." Patibanda-Sanchez told Bloomberg Law in July 2026 that the aim is to define "where exactly liability lands," not to shield it.

Limits

The proposal is not law. Delaware lawmakers are expected to take up draft legislation in January 2027, so every term above can still change. Comer's letter notes that the AI Commission's December 2025 report did not mention any safety risk assessment or consultation with independent experts. It also notes that the Secretary of State's office would not describe its working relationship with the AI company involved. Christopher Bruner, a business law professor at the University of Georgia, told WHYY in September 2026 that there is "no overarching regulatory plan" for the fallout from AI-governed companies. The article does not give draft statutory text, eligibility criteria for the sandbox or how the oversight committee would be chosen.