TomTom is saying goodbye to among the mapping business’s superstars because it embraces the AI age. By Megan Lampinen
The marketplace for automotive navigation expertise has developed quickly over the previous decade, transferring from the normal navigation map for turn-by-turn instructions to ADAS maps that feed knowledge into varied driver help programs and Excessive Definition (HD) maps underpinning autonomous driving. For the early gamers on this area, it’s been a rollercoaster lesson in adaptability, to varied levels of success.
TomTom was one of many phase’s pioneers, with roots tracing again greater than 35 years. Its product line-up has turn out to be more and more refined and various, however cracks are displaying. The corporate has reported web losses for the previous a number of years, reaching a nadir of destructive €257.6m (US$298m) in 2020. Whereas it has managed to slender that loss extra just lately, 2025 nonetheless ended €6.40m within the crimson. In mid-2025, TomTom unveiled a revival plan involving 300 job cuts and a heavy reliance on AI to “realign the organisation with [a] product-led technique.” Now it’s bringing in new management.
Co-founder and Chief Govt Harold Goddijn will step down on 16 April 2026. Goddijn isn’t simply any government—he’s an Automotive Corridor of Famer, a visionary who noticed the promise of satellite tv for pc world placement system navigation when the remainder of the world was nonetheless utilizing a paper highway atlas. In 2016 he was knighted by the Dutch Royal Household for his contribution to society. After his departure, Goddijn will retain a nominal voice within the firm by way of a seat on the Supervisory Board.
TomTom can be about to lose the ‘Godfather of mapping’, Chairman Alain De Taeye, one other business legend who led Tele Atlas till it was acquired by TomTom in 2008. For the previous few years, he has been serving as a member of the Administration Board, tasked with steering the corporate’s geospatial content material technique and improvements in direction of an autonomous future.
One other Co-Founder, Corinne Vigreux, is leaving after greater than 30 years. Throughout that point, she’s been recognised as one of many world’s prime fifty girls in tech (Forbes) and as probably the most inspirational girls in European tech (Inspiring Fifty). For her contributions to society and the tech sector, she was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2013 and Officier within the Royal Order of Orange Nassau in 2016.
Irrespective of how revolutionary and pioneering they could have been, it’s now time handy over to the following technology. Steering TomTom into an AI-powered future now falls to long-serving Chief Income Officer Mike Schoofs, who has mentioned he’ll concentrate on scaling the automotive and enterprise companies.
Challenges and alternatives
Typically talking, the outlook for automotive location knowledge is scorching. It’s the inspiration of many new use circumstances rising from clever and related cockpits and is on the core of most autonomous driving programs. TomTom’s Automotive backlog at the moment stands at €2.40bn, and it’s actively positioning AI on the core of its location knowledge technique. GenAI and agentic AI are anticipated to reshape the way in which customers work together with navigation-based providers dramatically, and TomTom is integrating massive language fashions to grasp a extra conversational, intuitive and dynamic person expertise. However the AI shift received’t essentially come simply or cheaply.
In its Location Platform Index 2025, Omdia analysts observe: “Embedding GenAI immediately into the car software program stack introduces further complexity and dependency on exterior AI platforms, elevating questions round value management, long-term differentiation, and monetisation.” Pivotally, there’s no assure that at the moment’s automakers, a few of that are working on very skinny margins, can be prepared to pay a premium for conversational navigation. With this in thoughts, Omdia concludes that TomTom’s GenAI initiatives “at the moment operate extra as a defensive relevance technique—guaranteeing parity with evolving person expectations—than as a transparent near-term income driver.”
Then there’s the Overture Maps Basis. Introduced in 2022 as an open-source mapping knowledge collaboration between TomTom, Amazon Net Companies (AWS), Meta and Microsoft, the main focus was on providing standardised, brazenly licensed datasets to help the event of recent mapping merchandise. However within the brief time since its founding, the push for open-source has been changed by buzz round AI-infused mapping, and there’s now hypothesis that Overture might be floundering.
In the meanwhile, TomTom is struggling beneath monetary pressures not seen at its closest rivals Right here Applied sciences and Google. The corporate expects 2026 income to fall or at finest stay flat, because of destructive results from a shift from outdated to new contracts. The hope is that this short-term setback will drive development sooner or later.
On the plus facet, its new Automotive Navigation Software, designed to fast-track growth of navigation options for software-defined autos (SDVs), is taking part in in a scorching spot, providing a faster path to market and larger growth flexibility. TomTom’s options for logistics and last-mile supply have additionally been pegged by analysts as key development alternatives.
Shifting ahead, the corporate could look to widen its attain with among the newer electrical car (EV) manufacturers, lots of which are actually eyeing Europe. Whereas it already provides a number of Chinese language gamers for export markets, rival Right here claims to regulate about 95% of the placement providers marketplace for Chinese language autos exported abroad. This isn’t solely an essential income supply in itself however, extra pivotally, provides Right here publicity to cutting-edge mobility innovation. “China is the place the hyper innovation is occurring, and we’re in a position to be a part of that after which convey it to different OEMs within the Western world,” Right here Chief Govt Mike Nefkens advised Automotive World in January 2025.
Whereas a shakeup in management creates market and funding uncertainty, it might be the decisive transfer that TomTom must recreate itself for the AI and SDV age. It’s now over to Schoofs to harness the map-maker’s wealthy historical past, in depth companion community and rising asset pool to make sure its future success within the wider realm of location knowledge.
