https://www.androidpolice.com/found-gemini-feature-so-good-stopped-using-everything-else/ are a handy way to store detailed prompts, rules, and formatting preferences that you can then reuse whenever required. Think of them as a customized AI expert for a specific topic. You can give a Gem relevant context, so you don’t have to repeat it every time. While useful, Gems will not be around for long, with Google replacing them with something even more useful in November.
Starting November 17, 2026, Google says it will “automatically begin migrating your Gems to skills.” Until then, you can continue using Gems as you normally would.
So what exactly are skills? If you use Claude or any other AI assistant, you probably already know what a skill is. It contains instructions, examples, reference files, and scripts. Google also uses skills in Gemini Spark, letting its AI agent know how to carry out a task, including which tools to use and how to format a response.
The transition to skills inside Gemini would lead to a better experience, as you should be able to invoke a skill in any chat window using the /skill command, like in Claude and ChatGPT.
That’s contrary to how Gems currently work, requiring you to go to a specific Gems section in Gemini to use them. More importantly, in Gemini Spark, you can use multiple skills in a single prompt, which is not possible with Gems.
The best part about skills is that you can always ask Gemini to create one based on your requirements. Skills are shareable, so you can share them with your team or vice versa. For more complex tasks, you can even invoke one skill from another.
What happens to your Gems?
If you have made several Gems, you won’t have to worry about losing them. Google will migrate them to skills automatically.
Gems are currently available to all Gemini users, irrespective of whether they are on a free or paid plan. But skills are only available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers with a personal Google account. So, it’s unclear how the migration from Gems to skills will affect free users.
Google’s support page regarding the migration is not live yet, so we will have to wait for more details.
The transition to skills in Gemini could coincide with the release of Gemini 4, which may bring improvements in performance and efficiency and narrow the gap with Claude and ChatGPT.