Goldman Sachs Cuts Off Claude Code for Most Bankers and Traders
Internal guidance updated in October narrows access to coding AI down to engineers. "Strats," who handle both trading and development, are reportedly exempt.
Goldman Sachs has cut off most of its bankers and traders from AI coding tools. Bloomberg, which reviewed internal guidance updated in October 2026, reported that Claude Code and GitHub’s coding tools are now restricted to engineers. For several months the bank had extended access to staff outside engineering roles; that permission has now been pulled back.
Who still gets to use them
There is an exception. People known as “strats” - staff who combine trading, quantitative research, and software development in one job - are exempt from the new restriction, according to a person familiar with the matter. Goldman Sachs employs roughly 12,000 engineers.
Claude Code is a coding tool built by Anthropic. It lets you hand off coding work from the terminal, the text-based window where commands are typed in. The bank’s move adjusts internal access permissions for this tool and for GitHub’s coding tools.
What happens to the tools bankers were building themselves
Goldman Sachs had previously showcased how its bankers and traders were using AI to build early versions of tools for their own work. In July, the firm’s chief information officer described a process in which engineers would refine what those employees produced. The change shifts direct use of coding AI away from business staff and toward engineers.
A Goldman Sachs spokesperson said the firm gives employees access to some AI tools and observes how different divisions put them to use. It then evaluates factors such as productivity gains and risk management to decide which tools to keep for the long term, and who should have them. According to an anonymous source, some traders are unhappy about the restriction.
A similar shift happened in April. Reuters reported at the time that bankers in Hong Kong had lost access to Claude on the firm’s internal platform.
Does anything change in Korea?
This move concerns tool access permissions inside Goldman Sachs. Anthropic has officially highlighted cases of Korean companies using Claude Code, and the Claude web and desktop apps list Korean among their supported languages.
The thing to watch from here is how adjusting access by job function reshapes both tool-building by business staff and the work of engineers.