Goldman Sachs has narrowed access to AI coding tools used by bankers and traders, reserving them for engineers and certain quantitative specialists, according to a Bloomberg report published on 2 November.
The bank updated its internal guidance in October after reviewing productivity and risk management. Bloomberg, whose report is available through Financial Advisor, said it had seen the guidance. It names Anthropic’s Claude Code and Microsoft’s GitHub, without specifying a particular GitHub product.
Employees known as strats, whose work combines trading, quantitative research and software engineering, retain access, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Some traders had used the tools to monitor client flows, model positions and prepare written and visual material.
Goldman spokesman Nick Carcaterra told Bloomberg that the bank evaluates tools during experimentation before deciding who should use them longer term. Bloomberg also recalled CIO Marco Argenti’s July description of bankers and traders building prototypes that engineers could improve.
Access depends on the task
Goldman has previously distinguished its coding tools from its broader internal assistant. Its 2024 shareholder letter separately named a developer coding assistant and the natural-language GS AI Assistant. In a February 2025 podcast, Goldman executive George Lee said the internal assistant offered access to models with reliability and regulatory compliance in mind.
There are also controls within coding agents themselves. Anthropic’s Claude Code documentation describes configurable permissions and sandboxing to restrict file and network access. Its enterprise guidance says administrators can enforce permissions that local settings cannot override. Those documents describe available capabilities, not Goldman’s configuration.
The reported decision therefore raises two separate questions for an employer: which staff should have a coding agent, and what the agent may access or change once they have it.
A different boundary from JPMorgan’s
Sulat’s JPMorgan coverage concerns other boundaries. CISO Pat Opet urged companies to restrict anonymous access to services. Separately, JPMorgan blocks third parties that use customers’ banking credentials to enter accounts, while supporting customer-authorized data sharing through open banking providers.
Goldman’s reported change governs employees using tools inside the firm. The connection is how institutions define access and authority as agents take on more work. The policies address different users, systems and risks.
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