Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Shopify, Ramp, and other technically proficient companies have developed proprietary AI coding agents for internal use, offering employees an alternative to expensive products from Anthropic and OpenAI.
Chintan Turakhia, Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase, told reporters that the company's in-house AI coding agent, Forge, was launched for all engineers in April. Engineers can access the tool through Slack, GitHub, and a standalone web interface.
Turakhia stated that Forge's internal usage has rapidly increased while helping the company reduce costs, though he did not disclose specific savings. "We previously had almost no cap on AI-related spending, and costs were rising accordingly," he said. However, as Forge gained traction among engineers, "our AI spending is now steadily declining, even as total token usage continues to rise."
A key reason for cost reduction: Forge connects to the company's internal model routing system, allowing it to flexibly invoke large models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and open-source model providers.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, posted on X platform in late June that the company has tested several Chinese open-source models, including GLM 5.2 and Kimi K2.7. He also shared other methods to compress AI expenses, such as proactively restarting AI conversation sessions to avoid transmitting excessive information that drives up billing, thereby nearly halving AI-related costs.
Employees can @-mention Forge in Slack groups. The agent can assist in brainstorming new software features, product proposals, and completing development work. It can also access the Coinbase codebase, as well as enterprise software systems like Datadog and Sentry, to perform tasks.
However, Coinbase has not discontinued using Anthropic's Claude Code. Turakhia noted that among the company's 2,500 engineers using AI development tools (Cursor, Forge, Claude Code), Claude Code remains the most frequently used tool. "There is no hard rule on whether engineers choose Claude Code or Forge; it mainly depends on personal preference."
Many enterprises are building internal tools to manage costs associated with using Anthropic's coding products. As reported last week, IT firm Globant has developed a proprietary coding agent that can switch between Anthropic, OpenAI commercial models, and open-source models based on demand to handle development tasks.
E-commerce platform Shopify has also built its own agent, River, which engineers can call via Slack, alongside Claude Code and Codex. A Shopify executive revealed at a May briefing that 75% of employees are using this in-house tool, describing it as "highly token-efficient," capable of completing more development work at a lower cost.
Of course, in-house AI tools don't always control costs. Bloomberg reported in June that retail giant Walmart's proprietary coding agent, Code Puppy, faced such a surge in internal usage that the company had to impose usage caps.
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