Google retiring Gemini's Gems feature, replacing with 'skills'
Original: Google is killing off Gemini’s Gems in favor of ‘skills’
Why This Matters
The move signals a broader consolidation of Gemini's fragmented feature set as agent-style AI competitors tighten their grip on consumers.
Google announced it will shut down Gemini's Gems feature — custom AI assistants users built for specific tasks — on November 17, 2026. Existing Gems will be automatically migrated to a new format called 'skills,' which users can invoke via a forward-slash command within task threads.
Launched in 2024, Gems let Gemini users create reusable custom AI assistants without repeating instructions each session. Pre-built examples included a coding partner, brainstorming assistant, and career guide; users could also build and share their own, for things like nutrition tracking or vacation planning. Google had positioned sharing as a growth lever for Gemini adoption.
Now, Gems are being folded into 'skills,' a new format the company says will work across different AI tasks. Users will not need to take any action — migration is automatic. Gems remain functional until the November 17 cutoff. The transition message is appearing directly inside the Gemini app. The shutdown was first surfaced by 9to5Google before Google confirmed it.
The change comes as all-in-one AI agents — Meta's Muse and Instinct among them — gain traction, putting pressure on Google to simplify rather than fragment its AI surface area. Critics note the new 'skills' interface requires typing a forward slash to summon a capability, a convention more at home in developer tools than in consumer chat apps.