Google will remove the Gems feature it introduced in Gemini in 2024 and replace it with Skills. Gems allowed users to create and share custom instructions for specific tasks. Google’s ready-made Gems options included:
- learning coach
- brainstorming assistant
- career guide
- coding partner
- editor
Gems will become Skills on 17 November 2026, and existing Gems will be migrated automatically. Skills will be selected using the “/” symbol.
Why it matters
The change will affect how people who personalize Gemini for specific tasks and use these configurations work. While automatic migration eliminates the need to recreate existing custom instructions, it limits user intervention during the transition. On the other hand, accessing features through a slash may change users’ previous usage habits and how they discover options in the interface. For users who benefit from ready-made options for different purposes, particularly learning, careers, coding and editing, the key issue will be how directly these functions can be accessed in the new setup. Since the announcement does not explain whether Skills will maintain the existing sharing capabilities and the user experience of ready-made options in the same way, this aspect of the transition remains unclear.
Background
Google is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 72 news stories mentioning the name in the past 90 days, the latest dated 29 September 2026.