This is a submission for the Google Cloud NEXT Writing Challenge AI Agents Need a Constitution: The Missing Control Layer Google Cloud NEXT ‘26 Didn’t Solve At Google Cloud NEXT ‘26, one thing became clear: We are no longer building software. We are building autonomous systems. With announcements around agent-to-agent communication (A2A), the Agent Development Kit (ADK), and orchestration through Vertex AI, developers now have the tools to create systems that can: plan decide act collaborate But beneath all this progress lies a critical gap: We’ve accelerated capability… without solving control. The Dangerous Assumption Most developers are thinking: “If the agent is smart enough, it will behave correctly.” This assumption fails in real systems. Because intelligence does not guarantee: correctness safety consistency And at scale, that gap becomes risk.…