After treating Nest as an independent unit, Google is now making it a part of its internal hardware effort, according to CNET,
"All of Google's investments in machine learning and AI, they can very clearly benefit Nest products. It just makes sense to be developing them together."
— Google hardware chief, Rick Osterloh
Why it matters, per Axios' Ina Fried: Google had wanted to keep Nest separate from Google but the pros of unification have seemed to outweigh the cons for a while. Increasingly Google's own hardware efforts are more similar to Nest.