Gemini Skills Replace Gems: What Happens to Yours, and When

Gemini skills are replacing Gems. Google announced on September 30, 2026 that Gems will go away starting in November for personal accounts, March 2027 for Workspace business, enterprise and nonprofit customers, and June 2027 for education. Google says it will move remaining Gems into skills automatically.

The automatic move does not cover everything. Migrated Gems arrive as inactive drafts, skills made in the Gemini app do not sync with skills in Workspace, and Workspace Studio flows that call a Gem need rebuilding. This post covers what skills are, the dates, what carries over, what admins control, and how OpenAI and Anthropic are handling the same shift.

The short version: if your staff rely on Gems, list them now, decide which ones matter, and rebuild those as skills before the deadline. Treat the automatic migration as a safety net. Nonprofits on Workspace have until March 2027, but the Gems screen moves on November 17, 2026, and staff will notice.

We explained Gems themselves in What Are Google Gems? in July. Most of that still applies to skills.

What Gemini skills are

Google’s announcement on the Keyword blog calls skills saved instructions you write once and run whenever you need them. That is close to what a Gem was. The differences are in how you use them.

• They run inside any chat. You call a skill by typing a forward slash and its name in the prompt bar. You no longer open a separate Gem.
• They stack. Google’s example combines a writing style skill with a brand guidelines skill in one request.
• They can run on their own. Google says Gemini can apply a skill automatically when a prompt matches it. You can turn a skill off.
• They hold reference files. Plain text, PDFs and images are supported now. Google says files from Drive and Gemini Notebook are coming.
• They use an open file format. Google says skills are built on SKILL.md, a Markdown-based standard.

A Gem lived only in Gemini, while Gemini skills are plain files. Other tools read SKILL.md files too, including Claude. Google frames this as portability. How well a skill works when moved between platforms is untested, so treat portability as a promise for now.

The Gemini skills timeline and Gem deadlines

Google gave two sets of dates. The Keyword post gives months by account type. The Workspace Updates post gives exact days for Workspace customers.

Google’s admin migration guide says "March 1, 2027 or later" and "June 1, 2027 or later." Google also says it will give admins details on the automatic migration at least 30 days before it runs.

Personal accounts already have Gemini skills in chat. Google’s help page says skills need no paid subscription, and users must be 18 or older. As of October 6, the same page says skills are not yet available with a work or school account.

What happens to existing Gems

Google says remaining Gems become skills automatically when Gems go away. Its admin migration guide adds the details that matter:

• Names, descriptions, instructions and knowledge files carry over.
• Sharing carries over. The skill keeps the Gem’s Drive permissions and sharing settings.
• Migrated skills are inactive drafts. The guide says creators “must review and activate each skill before they can use or share it.”
• GitHub files do not carry over. The Gemini help page says GitHub files are not supported in skills.

There is a second gap. Google says Gemini skills do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace apps. A skill created in the Gemini app will not show up in the Gemini side panel in Docs or Gmail. To use one in both places, someone has to create it twice.

Google’s Gems to skills help page describes the manual route: download the Gem’s content, create a new skill, and upload its files.

How to create and share Gemini skills

In the Gemini app, Google’s help page lists four ways to make a skill:

1. Create with Gemini. Describe the task in a chat and Gemini drafts the skill.
2. Start from a template. Pick a recommended skill and edit it.
3. Create manually. Enter a name, description and instructions.
4. Upload. Add a SKILL.md file, or a folder that contains one.

Names for Gemini skills must be lowercase, with words joined by hyphens. Uploaded files can total up to 100 MB. Skills live under Settings in the sidebar. You call one with a slash in the prompt bar.

In Workspace, there are two routes. You can build a skill in Workspace Studio. Or you can use the skill builder in Google Docs, where a team can draft a skill together and comment on it. Google’s Workspace help page says skills work in Gmail, Chat, Docs and Slides through the Gemini side panel.

Sharing differs by place. In Workspace, you share a link that lets others make a copy of your skill, and admins decide whether sharing outside the organization is allowed. In the Gemini app, Google says sharing is coming. As of October 6, the Gemini help page does not describe it.

Workspace admin controls for skills

Admins get one main switch for Gemini skills in Workspace. Google’s admin help names it "Create and use skills," under Apps, Google Workspace, Workspace Studio, Skills. It is on by default. It can be set by organizational unit or configuration group. Turning it off blocks skill use and the skills page.

Users under 18 cannot create or share skills in Workspace. Google says the change can take up to 24 hours to apply.

The Workspace Updates post lists skills in Workspace apps for Business Starter, Standard and Plus, and Enterprise Starter, Standard and Plus. Education customers need the Google AI Pro for Education add-on. The post does not name Google Workspace for Nonprofits editions. If your organization is on one, check the Admin console rather than assuming.

One change is already live. The Workspace Updates post says users can no longer create Workspace Studio flows with an "Ask a Gem" step. Existing flows keep running until Gems are removed. If you have automations that call a Gem, they need a new step before March 2027. We covered other recent Gemini switches in Gemini defaults in Google Workspace.

OpenAI and Anthropic are making similar moves

Google is not alone. OpenAI and Anthropic also now store reusable instructions as skills.

OpenAI retires custom GPTs on December 11, 2026, according to its retirement and migration FAQ. Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral get until February 11, 2027. GPTs move to plugins, and a GPT’s instructions become a skill inside the plugin. The big difference: OpenAI’s migration is something you start yourself. After the date, unmigrated GPTs become inaccessible. We covered the details in Custom GPT retirement on December 11.

Anthropic has no retirement to manage. Claude skills already exist on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, per Claude’s skills help page. You upload a folder with a SKILL.md file. On Team and Enterprise, people can share skills with colleagues, and admins can push a skill to everyone. Our AI skills primer explains the format.

Each vendor is moving from a separate custom assistant to instructions you call inside a normal chat. Gemini skills and Claude skills both use SKILL.md files, so one source file may serve both, with some editing.

What agencies and nonprofits should inventory now

Many association and nonprofit teams built Gems for repeat work: member email drafts, grant boilerplate, style checks, event copy. Agencies often built Gems for clients. Here is what to do before the dates arrive.

1. List every Gem in use. Ask staff, not just admins. Note who created each one and who uses it.
2. Flag shared Gems. These carry the draft risk. Confirm each creator will still be around after March 1, 2027.
3. Save the instructions and files. Copy each Gem’s instructions into a document and download its knowledge files. This is your backup if migration goes wrong.
4. Note GitHub files. They will not carry over.
5. Find Workspace Studio flows with “Ask a Gem” steps. Plan new steps for each one.
6. Decide where each skill should live. Gemini app, Workspace, or both. Both means building it twice.
7. Rebuild the important ones first as Gemini skills. Use the skill builder in Docs so the team can review the instructions together.
8. Check the admin switch. Decide which groups get skills and whether external sharing is allowed.
9. Tell staff about November 17. Gems leave the main screen that day, and people will ask.

Agencies that built Gems for clients should check who owns them. If a Gem sits in an agency account and is shared with the client, the migrated skill will be a draft in the agency’s account. Moving the instructions into a client-owned skill avoids that problem.

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