House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has opened an investigation into Delaware's plan to create a new type of corporate entity managed day-to-day by an artificial intelligence agent, the committee announced Monday. The probe targets a novel corporate structure in Delaware, the nation's dominant incorporation hub and home to a majority of Fortune 500 companies—giving any change to its corporate code national significance.

In a letter to Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer, Comer raised concerns about the proposed Artificial Intelligence Company, or AIC—a structure that would shield the person or entity behind it from liability for harms caused by the AI agent running it. The chairman warned the proposal could protect AI firms and their investors from accountability, and asked the governor for documents and communications by November 9.

🚨 Delaware wants to let AI agents run companies while shielding their owners from liability when the AI causes harm. Chairman @RepJamesComer is seeking documents, including internal AI chat logs, from Gov. Meyer to find out who's behind the plan.
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) October 26, 2026

"We are concerned that Delaware's AIC proposal could be used to protect powerful AI companies and their investors from responsibility for reckless harmful actions, while also protecting non-transparent forces seeking anticompetitive regulatory capture behind state AI initiatives," Comer wrote.

The letter also questions the role of private-sector contributors to the proposal. It notes that a December 2025 report by Delaware's AI Commission made no mention of any effort to assess safety risks or consult independent experts, and that the Secretary of State's office declined to tell reporters about its working relationship with Norm Ai, the legal AI firm later named as the partnership's lead.

Comer asked Meyer to hand over all documents and communications about the AIC's development since January 2025, including "internal AI chat logs," along with agreements with outside contributors, records on safety concerns and all drafts of the proposal, by November 9. The committee said the information could inform federal legislation, including proposals to limit state AI regulatory initiatives—a reference to the ongoing debate in Congress over whether federal law should preempt state-level AI regulation.

Delaware's AI Company Plan

Delaware Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez and John Nay, CEO of legal AI firm Norm Ai, unveiled the proposal in a Fortune op-ed in July, describing a public-private partnership led by Norm Ai.

Under the framework, an AIC would be able to sue and be sued, hold property and take on obligations at the direction of its AI agent. A single member would be responsible for keeping the company adequately capitalized, and that member would be shielded from its debts unless it failed to capitalize the company or used it to commit fraud or a willful violation of law.

AICs would operate only within a 30-month regulatory sandbox overseen by a committee of state officials and outside experts. They would be required to disclose their status to counterparties and would be barred from banking.

The proposal aims to "wrap AI in legal form," the authors wrote, arguing that a recognizable legal identity would make an autonomous system's conduct "visible, traceable, and accountable."

Some legal scholars have questioned that reasoning. "There's really no overarching regulatory plan here for dealing with the fallout that AI-governed companies could bring," Christopher Bruner, a business law professor at the University of Georgia, told WHYY in September.

Patibanda-Sanchez has rejected the idea that the plan is a liability shield. "We're not trying to shield liability. We're trying to define where exactly liability lands when there's some type of malfeasance or psychopathic behavior," she told Bloomberg Law in July.

Meyer has also defended the effort. "It is coming, and the solution is not ignoring it," he said on a WHYY call-in show in September.

Delaware officials say the AIC framework would make AI agents accountable inside a supervised sandbox, with draft legislation expected when state lawmakers return in January. Two dates now frame the dispute's next phase: November 9, when the governor's documents and communications are due to the committee, and January, when the draft bill is expected to reach the Delaware legislature.