Google Gems are becoming skills: what to do before March 2027

What are skills, and how are they different from Gems?

Skills are reusable instructions you call up inside an ordinary Gemini chat, and you can combine several in 1 prompt.

A Gem is a saved set of instructions for Gemini: your brand voice, say, or how you like suppliers compared. A skill does the same job, with 3 differences:

• It works inside your normal chat, and skills stack. Google’s example: pair a “vendor evaluator” skill with an “executive email drafter” skill to assess suppliers and draft the recommendation together¹.
• It works in Workspace apps too. Gems can’t be used there².
• It is saved in an open format (called SKILL.md). Skills written for another AI tool can be copied in¹, and Google describes the format as a way to move instructions between tools “without platform lock-in”². That fits our own view that the model is the most replaceable part of an AI project.

When does each change happen?

Skills arrive in October and November 2026. Gems move into Settings on 17 November 2026, and for business and enterprise accounts they stop no sooner than 1 March 2027.

Google’s dates¹:

• 5 October 2026: skills start arriving in Workspace. Accounts on the Scheduled Release track start on 19 October 2026 and finish by mid-November.
• 13 October 2026: skills start arriving in the Gemini app.
• 17 November 2026: Gems move to the Settings panel. You can still create, edit and use them.
• No sooner than 1 March 2027 (business and enterprise): Gems can no longer be created, edited or used. Automated flows with an “Ask a Gem” step stop working. Any Gems left in the Gemini app are turned into draft skills.
• No sooner than 1 June 2027 (education): the same.

1 change has already happened: you can no longer add an “Ask a Gem” step to a new flow in Workspace Studio. Existing flows keep running for now¹.

What should you do before March 2027?

List your Gems, rebuild the ones that matter as skills, and replace every “Ask a Gem” step in your automated flows.

1. List the Gems your team relies on, and who made each.
2. Rebuild the important ones as skills now. Google will convert leftover Gems for you, but they arrive as inactive drafts that their creator has to review and switch on². Don’t leave a Gem the team uses daily to that.
3. Make each skill where it is used. Skills don’t sync between the Gemini app and Workspace apps. If you want a skill in both, you create it in both¹.
4. Fix the automated flows first. A chat habit is quick to rebuild. A flow with an “Ask a Gem” step stops at the cut-off¹, and a stopped flow is easy to miss.
5. If you manage the account, check that skills are switched on for your team².

The 2027 dates say “no sooner than”, so they can move later, not earlier. Google also promises admins more detail on the automatic conversion at least 30 days ahead¹. Our view: do it this quarter anyway, while it is a tidy-up and not a deadline.