The news
Google will retire Gemini Gems, the custom assistants people build inside its Gemini app, and turn them into skills, with conversion of personal accounts starting November 17, 2026. Workspace business and enterprise accounts follow in March 2027, according to Google.
The change surfaced in a notice in the Gemini app, reported by 9to5Google on September 27, 2026, which said Gems will become skills starting November 17 and can be used until they migrate. A Google help page now sets out the schedule by account type: November 2026 for personal Google accounts, March 2027 for Workspace business, enterprise and nonprofit accounts, and June 2027 for Workspace education accounts. Google is part of Alphabet (GOOGL).
Gems let users save instructions, files and default tools as a named assistant, such as a coding partner or an editor, and share it by link, according to 9to5Google and TechCrunch. Google describes skills as reusable custom instructions for automating tasks. Its help page says users call one up by typing a slash and the skill's name in any chat, that Gemini can apply a skill on its own when it is relevant, and that several skills can be combined in one chat.
Google said it will automatically recreate existing Gems as skills when Gems go away, and supported knowledge files will carry over, though GitHub files are not supported in skills. Google also said Opal, its experiment for building mini apps, and Gems by Google Labs will be shut down at the same time in November.
The help page lists limits. Skills do not work with Canvas, Deep Research, guided learning, video or music creation, or most default Gems tools, and only 100 skills can be active at a time. Google said features from Gems, including sharing with other people and adding files from Google Drive, will come to skills in the coming weeks.
Access is the other open question. According to Google's help page, anyone over 18 using a personal Google account can now use skills in Gemini chat, and work and school accounts will get access later; the page is silent on pricing. 9to5Google reported that Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers can create skills from the Gemini Spark tab, while Android Authority reported that skills are, for now, available only to those paying subscribers. Android Authority said it had asked Google for comment.
The numbers
- Gems-to-skills conversion starts (personal accounts)
- November 17, 2026
- Gems removed for Workspace business, enterprise and nonprofit accounts
- March 2027
- Gems removed for Workspace education accounts
- June 2027
- Maximum skills active at one time
- 100
Why CEOs should care
For IT and Google Workspace administrators, the dates set a planning window. Business and enterprise accounts keep Gems until March 2027, but skills are not yet available to work and school accounts at all. Teams that built Gems for recurring tasks should list them now, note which ones rely on Canvas, Deep Research or GitHub files, and ask Google or their reseller how shared Gems and Drive files will behave after conversion.
For finance leaders, the subscription question matters. If skills stay limited to paid Google AI Pro or AI Ultra plans, as Android Authority reported is the case for now, it is not yet clear what staff who set up work Gems on free personal accounts will be able to do with them after conversion; Google says Gems will be converted automatically, but its help page does not address pricing. It is also a prompt to keep work-related AI tools on managed company accounts, where the business controls data, access and licensing.
For chief information officers and boards, the bigger lesson is how quickly AI product features can be reshaped or withdrawn. Google introduced Gems in 2024, according to TechCrunch, and personal-account Gems will be gone about two years later. Organizations building workflows on any AI assistant should keep prompts, instructions and reference files in their own documents so they can be moved, and ask vendors for written deprecation notice periods in contracts.
The bigger picture
The move from Gems to skills shifts Gemini away from separate custom chatbots and toward a single assistant that pulls in reusable instructions when needed. TechCrunch linked the change to competition from all-in-one AI agents such as Meta's Muse, and criticized the slash-command interface as a design that engineers, rather than ordinary users, tend to prefer.
Turning Gems into skills while shutting down Opal and Gems by Google Labs at the same time leaves Google with fewer overlapping ways to build custom AI tools around Gemini. For customers, it means the basic unit of customization is changing, and anything built on the old one has to be checked after the move.
What’s next
Conversion for personal accounts starts November 17, 2026. Watch for Google to confirm whether free users can create and use skills, when skills reach Workspace accounts ahead of the March 2027 cutoff, and whether sharing and Google Drive files arrive in skills as promised before Gems disappear.
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