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.