Google Said To Be Merging Waze And Google Maps Teams – SlashGear

The move to merge the Waze team with the Google Maps team is largely seen as a move to improve Google’s efficiency. Like most other tech companies, Google has faced serious headwinds owing to the global slowdown, following which Google CEO Sundar Pichai set out on a plan to make the company more productive (via CNBC). A crucial part of Pichai’s plan was to merge teams that happened to work on products that had overlapping objectives. 

For the same reason, in addition to the entire Waze team, Google is also merging team members working on Google Earth and Google StreetView under a single Geo-focused organization, a Google spokesperson confirmed. However, the spokesperson added that Waze’s existing CEO Neha Parikh would exit her role following the restructuring. Despite the restructuring, Google has promised that it intends to keep Waze’s unique brand identity intact. “Google remains deeply committed to Waze’s unique brand, its beloved app and its thriving community of volunteers and users,” a statement issued by Google read.

As of 2022, Waze has more than 151 million monthly active users, making it the second-most popular mapping service. It remains to be seen if Google actually keeps its word and keeps the best interests of the Waze user community in mind before making any significant changes to the service.