Morning newsletter digest

Fortune Term Sheet: “The world is theirs to lose.”

• Fortune profiles Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf, the quieter engineering-led operator behind the defense tech company’s rise.
• Anduril is reportedly nearing a raise that would roughly double its valuation, with Fortune framing execution in real-world tests and combat as the key question from here.
• Deal notes: QuantumMotion raised a $160M Series C for silicon transistor-based quantum computing; Catalyst Pharmaceuticals is being acquired by Angelini Pharma for about $4.1B; HawkEye 360 raised $416M in its NYSE offering.
• Why it matters: Defense tech, hard tech, and AI-adjacent infrastructure remain hot. Anduril is becoming a real test case for whether VC-backed defense companies can deliver at Pentagon scale.

The Rundown AI: OpenAI closes reasoning gap in voice agents

• OpenAI introduced GPT-Realtime-2, GPT-Realtime-Translate, and GPT-Realtime-Whisper, bringing stronger reasoning, live tool use, streaming translation, and transcription to voice agents.
• The newsletter says Realtime-2 reached 96.6% on Big Bench Audio versus 81.4% for its predecessor, and early users include Zillow, Priceline, and Deutsche Telekom.
• Google opened its Gemini-powered AI health coach to the public, tying Fitbit, Health Connect, Apple Health, wearable data, and medical records into a Google Health hub.
• Why it matters: Voice agents are moving from “press button, wait awkwardly” toward real-time task interfaces. Very likely worth tracking for customer support, travel, health, and personal assistant workflows.

Short Squeez: Wall Street Bonus Increases Coming

• Johnson Associates projects Wall Street bonuses rising for a third straight year, with M&A and equity capital markets teams potentially up 10% to 20% or more.
• The rebound is tied to volatility, recovering dealmaking, stronger equity issuance, and trading desks benefiting from swings across stocks, rates, and commodities.
• Market notes: stocks pulled back, 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.38%, earnings remain the bullish backbone, and Datadog jumped after raising guidance while Planet Fitness sank after weak signups.
• Why it matters: “It’s the year of the bank” is the vibe, but the caveat list is not tiny: war, rates, tariffs, and markets being markets. Bonus optimism, with a helmet on.

Worth opening: The Rundown AI on real-time voice agents, Fortune’s Anduril profile.