Good morning. Anthropic and Google are in talks for a cloud deal. Donald Trump tames expectations for his meeting with Vladimir Putin. And we take a deep dive into the quest for an AI junior banker. Listen to the day’s top stories.

Anthropic is in discussions with Google about a deal that would provide the artificial intelligence company with additional cloud computing power valued in the high tens of billions of dollars, according to people familiar. 

Donald Trump said he didn’t want to have “a wasted meeting” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the latest sign that a planned second summit between the two leaders could be in jeopardy. While he hasn’t decided to scrap the meeting, he reiterated his desire to see current battlefield lines frozen as part of a ceasefire agreement. The Kremlin has rejected that request, and sought to tamp down expectations for the summit. 

Gold and silver wavered in Asian trading after the precious metals tumbled from unprecedented highs. In case you missed it, here’s our explainer about why bullion has been so attractive. Check out our Markets Today live blog for all the latest news and analysis relevant to UK assets.

European corporate roundup: Adidas lifted its earnings forecast for the year amid strong demand for its retro sneakers and efforts to mitigate the impact of US tariffs. The news wasn’t as rosy at L’Oréal, which posted disappointing sales growth last quarter. 

Bond funds run by some of the world’s largest asset managers are avoiding forced sales of French debt by changing their investment rules. A €1 billion State Street fund and a €289 million BlackRock product recently stopped using indexes with strict double-A credit rating criteria as their benchmarks, allowing them to maintain their exposure to French debt despite the recent credit downgrade.

Deep Dive: The AI Investment Banker 

OpenAI has more than 100 ex-investment bankers helping train its artificial intelligence on how to build financial models as it looks to replace the hours of grunt work performed by junior bankers across the industry.

• The group, which includes former employees of JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman, is part of a project code named Mercury, according to documents seen by Bloomberg.
• Participants are paid $150 per hour to write prompts and build financial models for a range of transaction types, including restructurings and initial public offerings.
• The application process for Project Mercury involves almost no human interaction. The first step is a roughly 20 minute interview with an AI chatbot. Candidates are then quizzed on their knowledge of financial statements before the final modeling test.
• While junior bankers have expressed angst about the rise of AI, they’ve also touted how the grunt work is essential. 

The Big Take

Opinion

Prince Andrew’s recent Jeffrey Epstein-related scandal adds to a very strong case for an end to the monarchy, Rosa Prince writes. Even though a British regent don’t have the power to inflict the same damage as a wayward president, no system of monarchy can possibly be more legitimate than a head of state who’s chosen in free and fair elections.

Our daily word puzzle with a plot twist.

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Before You Go

Keily Blair at the Bloomberg Tech summit in London. Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

OnlyFans has paid out $25 billion to creators since it was founded in 2016, CEO Keily Blair said at Bloomberg Tech in London. “There’s not very many companies that can talk about creating wealth for others rather than just profiteering,” she said.

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