I work in a bank where ChatGPT, claude are blocked. I can still use AI every day without breaking any policy.
My bank blocks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, basically anything useful. You know the "Dear colleagues" email that ends with "disciplinary action." Classic.
They're not wrong though. Pasting customer data into a public chatbot is a bad idea. But I refuse to write requirements docs like it's 2019.
Turns out there's a setup that is allowed:
First you need a software, as you can use web or terminal:
VS Code + GitHub Copilot. Copilot runs inside VS Code, not a browser. On the Business plan your code never gets used for training, SOC 2 compliant, audit logs, the whole thing. You switch to Agent Mode, pick your model (Claude, GPT, Gemini) and tell it "analyze this codebase." It just does it. Like a junior dev who works for you.
Clone your repos. The AI reads YOUR teams actual code, not generic examples. "Trace the payment flow from API to database" and it goes through every file. Beats staring at Java classes for 3 hours.
Then combine with the documentation:
Jira + Confluence with personal tokens. You generate an API token from your Atlassian account settings, plug it into VS Code, and now your AI can search tickets, read acceptance criteria, pull Confluence specs. All from the IDE using your own credentials and permissions.
My use case : I want to understand a core subject that needs both the confluence doc and the codebase.
This helped me when joining a brand new team with a huge project I knew nothing about. Also makes me look smart during meetings.
Happy to answer questions.