properly proximal groups were introduced recently by boutonnet, ioana, and peterson, where they generalized several rigidity results to the setting of higher-rank groups. in this talk, i will describe how the notion of proper proximality fits naturally in the realm of von neumann algebras. i will also describe several applications, including that the group von neumann algebra of a non-amenable inner-amenable group cannot embed into a free group factor, which solves a problem of popa. this is joint work with srivatsav kunnawalkam elayavalli and jesse peterson.