Goldman Sachs Pulls Claude Code and GitHub's AI Tools From Bankers and Traders, Keeps Them for 12,000 Engineers

Goldman Sachs has narrowed who can use advanced AI coding tools. Bloomberg reported on 2 November that internal guidance updated in October limits Anthropic's Claude Code and GitHub's tools to engineers, after the bank had let bankers and traders use them for months. We couldn't read Bloomberg's original, which is paywalled, so the details below come from two outlets summarising it.

What changed

What Goldman said

Spokesperson Nick Carcaterra told Bloomberg the bank runs a period of experimentation that weighs productivity and risk management, and then puts the tools in the hands of those best suited to use them long term. The bank hasn't said which risk drove the decision. Reports note that some traders were frustrated.

A reversal from July

• In July, chief information officer Marco Argenti praised vibe coding by non-technical staff. The idea was that traders and bankers would build quick prototypes with AI and hand them to engineers to harden for production.
• Earlier this year Goldman blocked Claude for Hong Kong bankers over concerns about confidential data leaving the firm through third-party AI services, according to Dealroom's summary. A search for that report points to April 2026.
• Goldman has also built its own assistant that draws on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet, per the same summary.

Where the reports disagree

Dealroom's summary says the tools are Claude Code and "Microsoft's GitHub". AI Weekly's headline says GitHub Copilot. We haven't seen the Bloomberg text, so we can't say which GitHub product is meant, and we haven't confirmed whether any replacement tool has been offered to the people who lost access.

What this means for teams buying coding assistants

• Seat access is becoming a policy decision, not a default. A regulated firm that tried the tools widely has now sorted users by role.
• The "prototype, then hand to engineers" model needs an owner. If non-engineers build tools, someone has to review the code, the data they touch and who maintains them.
• Data handling is the sticking point to document. The Hong Kong block was about confidential data leaving the firm, so ask any vendor where prompts and code go before rollout.