Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

In May, Apple restricted its employees from using ChatGPT and other AI tools like GitHub CoPilot, a Microsoft tool that automates coding, according to an internal document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The iPhone maker cited concerns that using AI could lead to a potential leak of confidential data, per the Journal.

Apple didn't respond to Insider's request for comment to confirm the restriction.

The move comes after Spotify is said to have removed "tens of thousands" of songs made by Boomy, an AI-music generator, the Financial Times reported.

It's part of an effort to protect artists' royalties after Universal Music Group, a multinational music corporation, sent a complaint to the music streaming platform that there is "suspicious streaming activity" on Boomy's songs, the FT reported.

"Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service," a Spotify representative told Fox Business.

Spotify didn't respond to Insider's request for comment to confirm the restriction.

Source: The Washington Post

Telecommunications giant Verizon announced that ChatGPT "is not accessible from our corporate systems" in an effort to limit the "risk of losing control of customer information" and source code, according to a Verizon press release from February.

"Our top priority is our four stakeholders: communities, customers, investors/shareholders, and society, and we have to be thoughtful when introducing a new and emerging technology such as a ChatGPT," Raquel Wilson, a communications manager at Verizon, wrote in the company's press release.

Verizon didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on the restriction.

A spokesperson at the financial services company confirmed to Forbes that it is "imposing usage limits" on the chatbot and is exploring "safe and effective" ways to deploy the tech across the company.

Wells Fargo declined Insider's request for comment.

Source: Forbes

In a memo e-mailed to employees in late April, the South Korean electronics titan told its workers to be careful when using ChatGPT, urging them to not enter personal details or private company information into the chatbot, according to Bloomberg.

Samsung didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on the restriction.

Source: Bloomberg

While the investment bank allows some of its employees to use AI tools for "legitimate business purposes" as of February, the company is "actively exploring" how generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be used by workers in a safe manner, Kevin King, the director of corporate communications at Verizon, told Insider in an e-mail.

"While Generative AI (Chat GPT and others) are expanding, limiting usage to certain work groups and employees allows us to determine how and when to best use these quickly evolving technologies," King wrote.

The move, announced in February, is part of the investment bank's effort to comply with the company's policy to limit its usage of third-party software, according to CNN.

JPMorgan Chase didn't respond to Insider's request for comment to confirm the restriction.

Source: CNN

The move comes in January after Amazon learned there have been "instances" of ChatGPT spitting out responses that mirror the retail giant's internal data, according to an internal screenshot of the message seen by Insider, around the time some workers used ChatGPT to help write code,

"This is important because your inputs may be used as training data for a further iteration of ChatGPT, and we wouldn't want its output to include or resemble our confidential information (and I've already seen instances where its output closely matches existing material)," the lawyer wrote.

When asked to confirm its restrictions on using AI, Adam Montgomery, an Amazon spokesperson, said the company has rules around how employees can use the tech in their workflows.

"We have safeguards in place for employee use of these technologies, including guidance on accessing third-party generative AI services and protecting confidential information," Montgomery told Insider.

"To ensure our security around AI, and to ensure that we don't harm our brands or our customers' brands, or inadvertently disclose sensitive data, no engagement, development or specific project work which involves ChatGPT or other AI technology is permitted without explicit direction from your team lead," Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia's CEO, and Rich Bressler, the company's CFO, wrote in a June memo to employees obtained by Insider.

The memo states that iHeartRadio wants to safeguard its data to prevent its competitors from getting a hold of it.

"Although AI, including ChatGPT and other 'conversational' AIs, can be enormously helpful and truly transformative, we want to be smart about how we implement these tools to protect ourselves, our partners, our company's information and our user data," the memo said.

The defense company told the Wall Street Journal in March that it will not share its proprietary company data with third-parties until tools like AI are reviewed and deemed safe to use.

Northrop Grumman didn't respond to Insider's request for comment.

"At Citi, we are excited to have recently gone live with a controlled and supervised environment for selected colleagues to use ChatGPT with public data," Stuart Riley, the head of digital at Citi, wrote in a LinkedIn post in June after meeting with OpenAI's Sam Altman.

Riley said that Citi is "generating and reviewing hundreds of use cases" to figure out how the AI can be applied across the company.

Source: Bloomberg

As of February, sources with knowledge of the bank's internal meetings told Bloomberg that emerging tech like ChatGPT must be reviewed before it can be applied to business communications.

Bank of America didn't respond to Insider's request for comment.

That isn't stopping the investment bank from building out its own AI tools.

Dinesh Gupta, the head of artificial intelligence engineering at Goldman, said the company has natural language experts and large language model engineers that works with some select teams at the firm to explore how they can use AI to do things like automate document-heavy workflows.

"We are seeing serious momentum within Goldman Sachs and potential use cases are pouring in," Gupta previously told Insider. "We are in the process of prioritizing which use cases we implement first. We've launched several proof of concepts."

Source: Bloomberg

"As with everything we do in the AI space, we are focused on implementing the technology responsibly, and keeping Accenture and client data secure," Jenn Francis, a spokesperson for Accenture, said when asked to confirm a ban on ChatGPT.