Google has revealed that it will be merging its Google Maps and Waze teams under one department to cut costs and consolidate operations. Specifically, Waze, the mapping service acquired by Google way back in 2013 will be joining Google’s Geo organisation which also houses Google Earth and Google Street View.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, all 500 employees under Waze’s team will be moving under Google Geo with Waze’s current CEO Neha Parikh set to leave her role tomorrow (9 December 2022). However, Google stressed that the merger will not result in any layoffs to the current employees in Waze or Google Geo.
Furthermore, the merger will also not affect the Waze app or any of its other services, as Google still intends to make Waze a standalone service. Although Waze offers similar GPS services to Google Maps, the former is well-known for its crowd-sourcing of en route information such as locations of speed cameras, police roadblocks, accidents and even information on toll prices.
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