Goldman Sachs has spent two years pushing AI out to its roughly 46,000 employees, not just its 12,000 engineers
The approach used several model providers at once: an in-house assistant built on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet, plus Anthropic's Claude Code and Microsoft's GitHub for bankers who wanted to build their own tools
As recently as July, CIO Marco Argenti was promoting "vibe coding" by traders and bankers, who built tools with AI and passed them to engineers to finish
In October, Goldman reversed course. Per reporting from Bloomberg, updated internal guidance now limits Claude Code and GitHub to engineers after a review of productivity and risk, and some traders are frustrated
A week before the story ran, Anthropic filed publicly for its IPO with Goldman as one of two lead underwriters
Here are the five moves that took Goldman from vibe coding to engineers only
1. GS AI Assistant
In June 2025, Goldman took its internal chatbot firmwide after a pilot with about 10,000 users, out of a workforce of roughly 46,500
The assistant runs inside Goldman's compliance perimeter and gives staff access to models including ChatGPT and Gemini
Argenti rolled out GitHub Copilot and Gemini Code Assist, and Goldman became the first major bank to use Cognition's autonomous coding agent, Devin
By August 2026, hundreds of Devin agents were working alongside roughly 12,000 human developers, and Argenti said the deployment could grow into the thousands
2. Claude in the back office
In February, Argenti told CNBC that Anthropic engineers had been embedded inside Goldman for six months, building autonomous agents on Claude
The first targets were trade and transaction accounting and client vetting and onboarding.
3. Hong Kong
In late April, the Financial Times reported that Goldman had cut off Anthropic's models for its Hong Kong bankers
Staff there had used Claude through the bank's internal AI platform and had lost access in the preceding weeks
The FT said the cause was a strict reading of Goldman's contract with Anthropic, made after consulting the company.
Anthropic told the FT that Claude had never been officially supported in Hong Kong
Gemini and ChatGPT stayed on the platform, so the restriction applied to Claude only and was not a ban on AI
4. Nvidia and Anthropic
While the internal rules were tightening, Goldman's AI banking business was growing
It is underwriting Anthropic's IPO and helping Nvidia arrange large debt deals
In August, Nvidia signed memoranda of understanding with KKR, Goldman, Brookfield, Blackstone, BlackRock and Apollo to set up compute financing platforms
The goal is to bring in more than $500 billion of outside capital over time. Solomon has said Jensen Huang brought the idea to Goldman
On October 26, Anthropic filed to list on Nasdaq under ANT, with Goldman and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters
IFR reported the offering could raise $75 billion to $100 billion through a syndicate of more than 20 banks
5. Engineers only
The October guidance limits Claude Code and GitHub to engineers. Strats, who work across trading, quant research and engineering, are exempt
Traders had been using the tools to monitor client trading flows, model market moves and positions, and produce written and graphic content, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg
A Goldman spokesperson said the bank makes AI tools available across the firm to find use cases
After a trial period weighing productivity and risk, it gives them to the people best placed to use them long term
Bloomberg noted that banks are spending millions of dollars on AI tools while also managing cybersecurity risk, cost and productivity
Non-engineers who relied on Claude Code or GitHub now need to request other tools or use the GS AI Assistant instead
That leaves Claude Code with roughly 26% of Goldman's headcoun
