Google is retiring Gems, the customisable Gemini assistants it launched in 2024, and folding them into a newer feature called skills. A notice now shows up at the top of the Gems manager in the Gemini app, telling users their Gems will start converting automatically from 17 November 2026. Until each Gem is migrated, it keeps working as before.
On paper, this is a consolidation rather than a loss. Gems and skills have the same core purpose: they let users give Gemini a standing set of custom instructions so they don’t have to rewrite the same prompt every time. Skills arrived alongside Gemini Spark, and Google now seems to be tidying up two overlapping features into one.
How they’re accessed is the most noticeable change. Gems sit in the side panel, and reaching your own means scrolling to the My Gems section before starting a chat. Skills are called up by typing a forward slash in the prompt box, and more than one can be active in the same conversation. That is a real usability improvement. Stacking a writing-style skill with a research skill, for example, is more flexible than switching between separate Gems that each do one thing.
The concern is what might be lost along the way. Gems can be set to use a default tool such as image generation or Canvas, can include uploaded files for reference, and can be shared with other people through a link. Google hasn’t explained whether skills will support all of that, or how migrated Gems will handle their attached files and sharing links. Anyone who has built a Gem around a set of reference documents will want those answers before mid-November.
The rollout appears to have started early. The support article linked from the notice isn’t live yet, and the button for creating skills doesn’t work either. For now, Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers can build skills through the Gemini Spark tab and call them in regular chats with a slash. It isn’t clear what the change means for free users, who gained access to Gems in 2025.
The shift also brings Gemini closer to its competitors. OpenAI has offered custom GPTs since 2023, and Anthropic introduced Skills for Claude last year, with a similar focus on reusable, combinable instructions. Google’s rebrand suggests the industry is settling on skills as the model for personalising AI assistants. Whether users lose features in the process will only become clear once the migration begins.
