On 19 August 2026, Senator Patricia Bullrich, who leads the governing bloc in the Senate, told the General Legislation Committee that the government would amend its overhaul of the Ley General de Sociedades. La Nación reports that the revised text requires a responsible natural or legal person, and that the administrative body include at least a legal person with "idoneidad suficiente para el control de sistemas automatizados". The change is small in drafting terms. It is the right one, and it shows that Argentina can pursue deregulation without removing accountability.
What the bill does, and what changed
The bill is Expediente PE-193/26, Mensaje 187/26, which would replace Law 19.550, in force since 1972. The Senate of Corrientes province cites that file number in a resolution dated 20 August 2026. Drafted by Federico Sturzenegger's Deregulation Ministry, the bill creates "sociedades automatizadas" that run on algorithms or AI without employees for ordinary operations, and recognises DAOs that can operate partly or fully autonomously. Chequeado's explainer notes that such companies would have legal personality and limited liability.
The amendment targets the most contested idea: an entity with no human anywhere in its governance. Bullrich said she wants responsibility to be "mucho más pétrea" and to rest on "un control concreto, físico, humano", per Infobae. La Nación says a fully digital company with no human participation is now "completamente descartada".
Two caveats matter. Reports differ on scope: La Nación ties the requirement mainly to DAOs and to the administrative body of automated companies, while other outlets describe it as covering automated companies generally. And the final wording was still being drafted, so no one outside the committee can say exactly what the rule will cover.
The strongest case for the original text
The original design had a real argument behind it. Corporate law has always been a technology for allocating risk, and software agents already perform tasks that once needed staff. Wyoming's 2021 DAO supplement, SF0038, defines a DAO as a limited liability company organised under that chapter, and Argentine proponents want a clear legal home for such structures instead of leaving them in grey zones. Supporters at the Senate hearings, including Emiliano Kargieman and blockchain specialist Sebastián Heredia Querro, argued the regime would give Argentina an institutional advantage and keep startups from relocating, according to Perfil. Matías Álvarez of the financial intelligence unit (UIF) told the committee the bill keeps anti-money-laundering controls in place.
Why accountability was the weak point
Legal personality is a bargain: owners get limited liability, and in return someone must be identifiable and answerable when harm occurs. A company with no human director breaks that bargain. Chequeado quotes lawyer Pablo Serdán warning that the original text would block inspection of code protected by intellectual property absent a court order, which amounts to being unable to audit the software that decides and distributes money. Santiago Siri warned that identifying owners is exactly what such structures are designed to frustrate. Chequeado also notes that Malta was placed on the FATF grey list partly over the difficulty of establishing who stood behind these structures.
These objections are not an argument against automation. They are an argument for a named party that regulators and courts can reach. That is a proportionate requirement: it does not restrict what software may do inside a company, and it adds one accountable person or entity at the top. A legal person qualified to oversee automated systems is arguably the more useful design, because it puts professional responsibility where the technical risk sits.
What remains deregulatory
The amendment does not dismantle the reform's liberalising core. El Argentino reports that statute primacy over general law was not questioned. The bill still drops the obligation to fix a specific corporate purpose, and still lets companies submit internal disputes to foreign law or private arbitration, points described as not under discussion "at least for now". Registry oversight is lighter, and the bill digitises public files and corporate books.
That package is where the reform's economic upside lies: cheaper formation, flexible contracting and fewer discretionary registry hurdles. Some of it will still draw scrutiny. Corrientes' senators have asked national legislators to revise provisions that they say intrude on provincial registry and oversight powers, and former registry heads have raised homonymy and registry concerns. These are federalism and design questions, and they deserve the same evidence-based treatment as the AI provisions.
The wider signal
The amendment lands alongside President Milei's September address to the UN General Assembly, where press accounts say he opposed preventive state controls on AI. We could not find a primary transcript, so the exact wording is unverified. The two episodes together show a useful pattern: the government's anti-precautionary rhetoric is meeting the practical need for liability rules, and the rules are winning where they are narrow and concrete.
That is the right trade. Preventive licensing of AI development would slow experimentation. Requiring a responsible party for a legal entity does not. The first is a control on technology; the second is ordinary corporate accountability, which existed long before AI.
What to watch
The committee has not issued a dictamen, and La Nación reports floor debate will not come before the second week of September, so the final text matters more than the announcement. Three drafting choices will decide whether the fix is real: whether the requirement covers every automated company, whether the responsible party carries personal liability, and whether regulators keep a path to audit the systems being overseen. If the answers are yes, Argentina will have built a regime that keeps its deregulatory ambition and still gives a creditor, a court or a regulator someone to call.