Google is killing off Gemini’s Gems in favor of ‘skills’

Google has announced that it is shutting down Gemini Gems, the feature that let users build custom AI assistants for specific tasks, and will automatically migrate them to new "skills" starting November 17, 2026. Users won't lose their work; existing Gems remain usable until then and will transition without any action required. Launched in 2024, Gems included pre-made assistants like a learning coach and coding partner, as well as user-created ones that could be shared. The change reflects Google's tendency to brand and later merge AI features, and the new skills require typing a forward slash in a task thread to select, which is less consumer-friendly than simply typing to a chatbot like Meta's Muse. The wind-down was first reported by 9to5Google.

(Source：TechCrunch)