Google is replacing Gems, the custom versions of Gemini many people use for repeat tasks, with a new feature called Skills. If you have built Gems for proposals, emails or content, you have a few months to move them over.
What is changing
- October 5, 2026: Skills started rolling out in Google Workspace.
- October 13, 2026: Skills started rolling out in the Gemini app for all users, finishing by mid-November.
- November 17, 2026: Gems move into the Gemini app’s Settings. You can still create, edit and use them.
- No sooner than March 1, 2027: business and enterprise accounts can no longer create, edit or use Gems. Remaining Gems are converted to inactive draft skills that their creator must review and activate.
- Education accounts follow no sooner than June 1, 2027.
What Skills are
Skills are reusable, modular instructions. You call one by typing “/” and its name in a chat (Google plans to change this to “@”), and you can combine several skills in one prompt. They use an open, Markdown-based format called SKILL.md, so a well-written skill is easier to reuse across compatible tools.
One catch: skills currently do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace apps. If you use a Gem in Workspace, you need to recreate it in Workspace Studio. And any Workspace Studio flow with an “Ask a Gem” step will stop working once Gems are removed.
What to do now
- List your Gems and note which ones you actually use every week.
- Rebuild the important ones as Skills now: copy the instructions and re-upload the knowledge files, instead of waiting for the automatic migration.
- Check your Workspace Studio flows for “Ask a Gem” steps and replace them.
- Use the move as a clean-up. Combine overlapping Gems into fewer, sharper skills, for example one for your brand voice and one per recurring deliverable.
Why it matters for solopreneurs: your Gems are probably some of your most valuable “assistant” setups. Moving them deliberately takes an hour; losing a well-tuned one in an automatic migration can cost you much more.
Source: Google Workspace Knowledge Center, “About the transition from Gems to skills”, and Android Central, September 30, 2026.
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