Subscribe
Get Norm Ai updates on legal, compliance, and AI delivered to your inbox.
112 Resources


John Nay's opening remarks at the 2026 Central Park AI Forum.

Artificial intelligence systems increasingly generate conduct that appears intentional. They negotiate, advise, adapt to obstacles, and shape human decision-making. Yet they are not legal persons and lack minds in any conventional sense. We argue that the apparent impasse dissolves once legal intent is understood functionally rather than metaphysically. Across contract, tort, corporate, and criminal law, intent has never been a simple report on inner mental states. It is a normative tool used to gate legal effect, allocate blame, and manage risk, one that is routinely inferred, imputed, and even fictionalized in service of institutional goals. We reframe the AI question accordingly.

In a 2023 essay published in Science, one of us argued that nothing in the law of several states clearly prevents an AI agent from operating a company with no human at the helm. It then asked a plain question: when autonomous software begins to contract, pay suppliers, and transact on its own, what should we do?

Norm Ai has raised a $120 million Series C at a $1.2 billion valuation, led by Khosla Ventures.

Norm Ai is helping bring AI into the flow of everyday enterprise work with the launch of its compliance agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Meet the complexity of your global institution with Regulatory AI Agents that cover the world's most up-to-date rules and regulations