Goldman Sachs has banned traders, bankers, and other staff from using advanced AI coding tools because of risk and productivity concerns.
The bank is limiting access to tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and Microsoft’s GitHub to engineers and so-called “strats,” an investment banking term for workers who specialize in quantitative engineering and analytics, Bloomberg reported this week.
The move reportedly frustrated traders who used the tools to monitor data, build financial models, and produce graphics, among other things.
It also appears to undermine comments from Goldman chief information officer Marco Argenti in July, when he praised nontechnical Goldman staff using AI to build software prototypes before passing them to engineers for refinement.
A Goldman spokesperson told Bloomberg the firm allows staff to experiment with certain AI tools “to determine the best use cases across different parts of the firm” and to assess “a variety of factors including productivity and risk management.”
Once the experimental period ends, “we put [the tools] in the hands of those who are best suited to leverage them for the long term,” he said.
Fast Company reached out to Goldman for additional comment but had not heard back by the time of publication.
Wall Street institutions have been wrestling with how to balance speed versus safety in AI adoption.
Last month, JPMorgan Chase Chief Information Officer Lori Beer said that AI is evolving so quickly that it can be difficult to assess the risks in real time.
“We want to move at speed, but sometimes we must pull back to get controls in place,” she said. “The technology is running ahead of capabilities to manage it.”
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has urged caution about allowing AI agents to operate without human supervision, specifically saying investment bankers need to carefully check the accuracy of AI-generated pitchbooks and spreadsheets.
“The risk [is] letting it start getting answers without humans checking to make sure the answer was right,” he said in September.
Of course, banks also remain eager to capitalize on AI’s potential benefits.
Goldman’s internal AI initiatives include a proprietary chatbot, which is available to all employees, and a “copilot” coding tool for developers. As of September 2025, it was also piloting an autonomous coding agent and a copilot tool for investment bankers, to help them compile research.