What happened
On 30 September Google introduced Gemini skills: instructions you save once and reuse whenever you want, both in the Gemini app and in Gmail, Docs and the rest of Workspace. In the same announcement it confirmed something many teams have not read yet: they replace Gems.
The rollout is already under way. In Workspace it started on 5 October for Rapid Release domains and reaches everyone else from 19 October. In the Gemini app it starts tomorrow, 13 October. Google expects to finish by mid November.
If someone in your company built a Gem to draft quotes, answer complaints or review contracts, this affects you.
The dates that matter
Here is the summary, exactly as Google published it in its admin help center:
- 5 to 12 October 2026: skills in Workspace for Rapid Release domains.
- 13 October 2026: skills in the Gemini app.
- 19 October to mid November: skills in Workspace for all other domains (Scheduled Release).
- 17 November 2026: Gems move to the Gemini settings panel. You can still use them.
- No sooner than 1 March 2027, on business and nonprofit accounts: Gems can no longer be created, edited or used.
- No sooner than 1 June 2027: the same for education accounts.
- On personal accounts the phase out starts earlier, from November.
What changes with skills
A Gem was a separate assistant: you opened it and talked to it. A skill works inside your normal conversation. You type a slash, the name of the skill and that is it. And you can combine several in the same prompt, for example your brand voice skill with your sales proposal format skill.
Other differences we think are useful for a small business:
- They work in the Gemini app and in Workspace apps, not only in the chat.
- They accept reference files: text documents, PDFs and images. Your price list, your style guide or your terms and conditions can go inside.
- They can run on their own when a prompt matches what they do, without you having to call them.
- They use the SKILL.md format, a Markdown format that other AI tools already use. Writing your instructions well once is useful outside Google too.
- The admin decides: they are turned on or off from the Workspace console.
What does not migrate on its own
Google says any Gems still around in March 2027 will be converted into skills automatically. They keep their name, description, instructions, knowledge files and Drive permissions. So far, so good.
But there are three details that can catch you out:
- Migrated skills arrive as inactive drafts. Each person has to review and activate them before using or sharing them. If nobody does, the following Monday the team finds itself without its assistants.
- "Ask a Gem" steps in Workspace Studio flows will stop working. If you have automations built there, those steps need to be rebuilt.
- Skills do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace. Google recommends manually recreating important Gems in every place they are used.
What it means for a small business
There is time. March 2027 is a long way off and nobody needs to do anything this afternoon. But in the companies we work with, Gems usually have one problem: nobody knows how many there are or who uses them. One person created them, shared them by link, and half the team depends on them without realising.
The migration is a good excuse to tidy that up. The instructions you give an AI are company knowledge, just like a Word template or a procedure. If they live in the account of someone who leaves, they leave with them.
It is also a good moment to ask whether some of those tasks should still be an assistant someone opens by hand, or whether they deserve a proper automation. We explain it in when to implement AI in your company.
What I would do this week
For a small company this adds up to an hour or two in total:
- Take an inventory. Ask the team who uses Gems, for what, and whether they share them. A spreadsheet with name, owner and use is enough.
- Check in the Workspace console that skills are turned on and which release track your domain is on.
- Pick the three most used Gems and recreate them as skills now, without waiting for the automatic migration. Use the chance to clean up instructions that no longer make sense.
- Keep a copy of the instructions outside Gemini, in a company document. If you switch tools tomorrow, you do not start from scratch.
- Review Workspace Studio in case any flow uses a Gem step, and note it down to rebuild.
- Tell the team the dates: 17 November and 1 March. A short email saves a lot of questions later.
What we think
We like the change. Being able to combine instructions and have them work inside Gmail or Docs is much closer to how a person really works. And a format shared with other tools reduces dependence on a single provider, something we always recommend, as we said when we looked at the pricing of Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna.
What we do not like is that skills do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace. For a small business that uses both, it means maintaining every instruction twice. We hope Google fixes that before March.
If you want us to look at it with you
We run AI training for teams, and one of the sessions our clients ask for most is exactly this: turning what each person does with AI into shared, well written instructions. If any of those tasks needs to go further, we turn it into an AI automation or agent.
Book a thirty-minute call. We go through which Gems your team uses, which are worth moving to skills and which should become something automatic. No strings attached.
Sources
This article is based on the following publications, consulted on 12 October 2026:
Frequently asked questions
On Google Workspace business and nonprofit accounts, no sooner than 1 March 2027. From that date Gems can no longer be created, edited or used. Before that, on 17 November 2026, Gems move to the settings panel but keep working.
No. Google will automatically convert any remaining Gems into draft skills, keeping their name, description, instructions, knowledge files and Drive permissions. They do arrive switched off, though, and each person has to review and activate them before using or sharing them.
A Gem was a separate assistant you talked to on its own. A skill is a set of instructions you use inside any conversation by typing a slash and its name. Several can be combined in the same prompt, they work in the Gemini app and in Workspace apps, and they accept reference files such as documents, PDFs and images.
It depends on your domain's release track. On Rapid Release they arrived between 5 and 12 October 2026. On Scheduled Release they start on 19 October and Google expects to complete the rollout by mid November. In the Gemini app they arrive from 13 October.
Not for now. Google says skills do not sync between the Gemini app and Workspace apps, so important Gems have to be recreated in each place they will be used.
Steps that ask a Gem inside Workspace Studio flows will stop working when Gems are retired on business accounts. It is worth finding them now and rebuilding them with skills before March 2027.
According to Google, skills in Workspace are available on Business Starter, Standard and Plus and on Enterprise Starter, Standard and Plus, among other editions. In Workspace they are for users aged 18 and over, and the admin can turn them on or off from the console.