Most AI regulation discussions feel abstract. But when the Delaware AI Commission greenlights a sandbox specifically for agentic AI in corporate governance, it becomes very concrete. They aren't just debating principles; they are asking, as reported by GovTech, whether an AI agent could buy a company or form an LLC. This shifts the conversation from the Capitol building to the product development roadmap.
I see this as a rare opportunity to align the "map" of regulation with the "territory" of how these systems are actually built. The map is the sandbox framework—a controlled space with regulatory oversight. The territory is the messy reality of product design, with its edge cases, failure modes, and necessary human interventions. This sandbox is a formal invitation to test our version of the territory against their emerging map.
In practice, this means our legal and product teams need to treat this as a design challenge. If an agentic AI were to execute a corporate filing, what would the audit trail look like? What specific, non-delegable decisions require a human-in-the-loop? We can't just theorize; we need to have a spec ready. This is about building the "human touches" that Delaware’s Secretary of State mentioned directly into the product's architecture.
This effort offers a different path than the broad, often conflicting AI laws popping up in other states. Instead of reacting to finished rules, it provides a forum to build the technical and procedural precedents for high-stakes autonomous systems, one use case at a time.
