Google is ending Gems, the task-specific custom assistants in its Gemini app, and moving them to a skills format, TechCrunch reported on 28 September. Google says it will migrate existing Gems automatically, so their owners will not have to make the change themselves. The new format is intended to make those saved instructions available across different AI tasks.
Key points
- Gems let people save instructions for particular tasks instead of entering them repeatedly.
- Google says existing Gems will move to skills automatically and remain usable until the change.
- Selecting a skill within a task thread will require typing a forward slash.
Gems saved instructions for recurring tasks
Google introduced Gems in 2024 as a way to give its AI directions for a particular kind of work without repeating those directions each time. The company offered ready-made versions for learning, brainstorming, career guidance, coding and editing. People could also make their own, with examples ranging from a running coach to a holiday planner.
The organising idea was a custom assistant built around one purpose: choose the assistant suited to the task, and its instructions would already be there. Custom Gems could be shared with other people, an option Google had hoped would help make the Gemini app more popular. That gave Gems a place both as personal shortcuts and as assistants someone else could reuse.
Gemini skills will work across tasks
Under the new arrangement, the instructions put into Gems will become skills usable across different AI tasks, according to TechCrunch. The distinction is where the saved directions sit in the experience: instead of opening an assistant made for a particular purpose, a person will be able to select a skill within a task thread. Google says that selection requires entering a forward slash, “/”, and choosing the skill to use.
Planning a holiday could therefore draw on instructions saved for that purpose during a task, rather than requiring those instructions to be typed again. It would still involve selecting the relevant skill with a forward slash in the thread. That is a change in how the saved directions would be called up, as well as where they could be used.
For people who have already made custom Gems, Google says the transfer will happen without any action on their part. Using a migrated skill is a separate matter: the forward-slash command puts a choice into the task thread itself. TechCrunch contrasted that interaction with typing an ordinary request to Meta’s Muse, one of the all-in-one AI agents it identified alongside Instinct.
Google will begin turning Gems into skills on 17 November 2026, according to the message shown in the Gemini app. Gems will remain usable until then.
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