ByteDance restricts employee use of external AI tools

ByteDance has reportedly implemented new internal regulations to restrict the use of external AI tools, such as Claude and Codex, across the company. According to reports, the company will ban external AI access to all L4-level code repositories and Feishu documents starting this month, preventing employees from using personally purchased AI accounts for these tasks.

The move has sparked internal discussion. ByteDance Technical Vice President Hong Dingkun addressed the policy on the company intranet, noting that the leakage of L3-level or higher content would have severe consequences.

This follows previous efforts by ByteDance to tighten security. In May 2025, the company's security and risk control department issued notices to phase out third-party AI development software, including Cursor and Windsurf, in favor of its own programming assistant, Trae.

Additionally, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has previously expressed a commitment to avoiding AI distillation techniques to improve models, even if it results in temporarily lagging behind competitors, to ensure long-term technical breakthroughs.