I have not used a corporate VPN in more than ten years. At Google, access to internal apps depends on the user and device, not the network, since Beyond Corp. No client launch, no token; the system only degrades when an OS update is delayed. Yesterday Google announced Beyond Zero, so I record my read now.

The 2014 paper by Rory Ward and Betsy Beyer claimed the internal network is as dangerous as the public internet, so the perimeter cannot be a trust boundary. Google removed the privileged network, putting all apps behind an internet‑facing proxy in public DNS, authorizing each request by user, group, device certificate and a dynamic trust tier. Migration required thirty consecutive days of 99.9 % compatible traffic before moving a user, and the process has remained stable.

Zero trust verifies each request but lets the session act as permitted; AI now plays actor, attacker, and defender, with autonomous risk signals that trigger challenges or containment. The policy core stays static, written and verifiable, while dynamic controls only escalate. Governance, per‑action policy creation, sub‑millisecond completion, and EU compliance remain open challenges. Read the ACM Queue paper and review your agent pilots’ permissions for a practical start.