Google has announced that it will discontinue the Gems feature, which allows users to create custom AI assistants in Gemini. According to the announcement, support for Gems will end completely starting November 17, and existing Gems will be migrated to the new “Skills” structure. The assistants will remain usable until the migration is complete; the process may take several days. Afterward, the customizations will be found under Skills—in other words, the assistants will not be deleted but renamed. Gems were available to all users, including those with free accounts. However, the new Skills infrastructure and Gemini Spark are currently available only to Google AI Pro or Ultra subscribers. It remains unclear whether Google will grant free users access to their migrated assistants. If access is not provided, a subscription may be required.
Why it matters
This change raises the question of not so much whether users who have established personal workflows within Gemini will lose the customizations they are used to, but rather under which structure and conditions they will be able to access them. While preserving the customizations means that the content will not disappear entirely, the terms of use of the new system will determine whether the experience remains the same. For free-account holders, the issue is not merely a name change; whether access to the Skills infrastructure will be tied to a subscription requirement could directly affect the continuation of existing use. Since Google has not said whether it will provide free access to migrated assistants, the key question facing this group, particularly those who use Gems regularly, is whether a paid plan will be needed to continue using them.
Background
Gemini is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: over the past 90 days, we have published 19 articles in which the name appeared; the most recent is dated September 29, 2026.