Goldman restricts Claude Code, GitHub for traders and bankers
What's the deal? Goldman SachsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has barred most traders and bankers from using advanced AI coding tools, including AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s Claude Code and Microsoft's GitHub, according to BloombergDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Internal guidance updated in October limits the tools to engineers, after the bank had allowed bankers to use them for months.
Why the change? Goldman says it reviewed productivity and risk before narrowing access. "After a period of experimentation where we assess a variety of factors including productivity and risk management, we put them in the hands of those who are best suited to leverage them for the long term," said spokesperson Nick Carcaterra.
Who's affected? Some traders were frustrated, Bloomberg reported. They had used the tools to monitor client trading flows, simulate market moves and positions, and draft text and visuals. "Strats" — staff whose work combines software engineering, quantitative research, and trading — keep access.
Why now? The move reverses a stance from July, when chief information officer Marco Argenti praised "vibe coding" by non-technical staff. The idea: traders and bankers would build quick prototypes with AI, then hand them to one of the bank's roughly 12,000 engineers to refine for production.
It isn't Goldman's first limit. Earlier this year, the bank restricted staff in Hong Kong from using Anthropic's Claude over concerns about confidential data leaving the firm through third-party AI services.
The signal: Wall Street is shifting from open-ended AI trials to controlled deployment. JPMorgan has pushed staff to match cheaper models to routine tasks, and Goldman has built its own assistant drawing on models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet. The question now is whether coding assistants can deliver safe, measurable gains outside technology teams — or whether banks' need to control data, code, and accountability keeps them walled off.
Read more: Bloomberg, qz.com, finance.biggo.com, the-decoder.com, news.bloomberglaw.com, finextra.com
