Image: Google via Tech Radar
What separates Google Maps from Waze is the community-driven traffic incident alerts you get on the latter. But that feature looks like it's coming to Maps. Users are now seeing Waze traffic alerts in the app with the words "From Waze drivers" in the pop-ups. Google announced this integration back in July, but it's been getting a broader release in time for the holiday driving season.
As Tech Radar pointed out, Google Maps has been asking drivers to offer traffic incident updates for a while now. But the alerts coming from Waze are a new addition. These notifications are for incidents like lane closures, nearby construction, and the like. It does hint at Google possibly integrating Waze into Maps, which they have said in the past that they won't do. But we can't say for sure that Google will keep its word. We all know what happened to Fitbit after all.