With the emergence of integrated AI agents such as Meta’s Muse and Instinct, Google has announced the discontinuation of Gemini’s “Gems” feature, which enabled users to develop personalized AI assistants for specific functions. However, the efforts users put into creating these Gems will not be lost. Existing Gems will be automatically converted into “skills” that can be utilized across various AI tasks.
Information regarding this change is being disseminated within the Gemini application, where a notification informs users that Gems will be transformed into skills beginning November 17, 2026. The company stated it would handle the migration of Gems to the new format, eliminating the need for users to take any action. Users can continue to use their Gems until this transition date.
Introduced in 2024, Gems were designed to assist users in teaching their AI to execute particular tasks without the need for repeated instructions. For example, Google offered pre-built Gems like a learning coach, a brainstorming assistant, a career guide, a coding partner, and an editor. Users also had the flexibility to create Gems tailored to their own needs, such as a running coach, nutritionist, or vacation planner. These custom assistants could also be shared with others, a strategy Google hoped would increase the popularity of its Gemini AI app.
The news of Gems’ shutdown exemplifies Google’s tendency to brand every new AI feature with its own name, icon, and prominent app placement, especially when these features are subject to later reorganization or integration. (It’s worth noting that this strategic flaw predates the AI era for Google; at one point, for instance, the company managed several distinct messaging and communication applications simultaneously.)
Nevertheless, even as skills, these former Gems may not be as intuitive for consumers as simply typing text into a chatbot like Meta’s Muse. Google indicates that users will need to input a forward slash “/” within a task thread to select the desired skill — a user interface approach more commonly favored by engineers than by the average user.
The impending discontinuation of Gems was initially reported over the weekend by 9to5Google.