As all-in-one AI agents like Meta’s Muse and Instinct take off, Google announced it’s shutting down the Gemini feature known as “ Gems ,” which had allowed users to build custom AI assistants for specific tasks. However, the work users invested in creating the Gems won’t be destroyed. Gems will be automatically migrated to “skills” that can be used across different AI tasks.

Details about the change are being shared in the Gemini app, where a message warns users that Gems will become skills starting on November 17, 2026. The company said it will migrate the Gems to the new format, so users won’t have to do anything to make the transition. The Gems themselves will remain usable until then.

Launched in 2024, Gems were meant to help users teach their AI to perform certain tasks without having to repeat the instructions. For instance, some of Google’s premade Gems had included a learning coach, a brainstorming assistant, a career guide, a coding partner, and an editor. Users could also make Gems for their own needs, like a running coach, nutritionist, or vacation planner. These custom assistants could also be shared with others, which Google had hoped would help make its Gemini AI app more popular.

The news of Gems’ shutdown is another example of why Google shouldn’t be so quick to give every new AI feature its own brand name, icon, and prominent placement in its app’s navigation — especially if it’s going to shuffle things around over time, merging one feature into another. (To be clear, this has been a failing point of Google’s strategy long before the AI era. At one point, for instance, the company was operating multiple different messaging and communication apps at the same time.)

Yet, even as skills, the former Gems still aren’t as consumer-friendly as just typing in text to a chatbot like Meta’s Muse. Instead, Google notes you’ll have to enter a forward slash “/” in a task thread to select the skill you want to use — a user interface that engineers, not regular folks, tend to prefer.

Gems’ wind-down was first reported over the weekend by 9to5Google .

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Get 50% off a second pass The Disrupt experience is meant to be shared. Get your pass and bring a colleague, partner, or peer at 50% off. Cover more ground by making connections, building momentum, and discovering what’s next in the startup ecosystem.

At 19, founder raises $11M for Ghost, maker of a $3,499 computer for personal AI Dominic-Madori Davis

Federal judge calls Flock ‘indiscriminate mass surveillance’ Anthony Ha

Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs Anthony Ha

Google thinks SpaceX’s Starship has to launch 1,800 times before space data centers get off the ground Tim Fernholz

World’s first enhanced geothermal power plant completed in just 23 months Tim De Chant

Google releases Gemini 4 Argon, called its most powerful model yet Lucas Ropek

The Pentagon taps Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to help decide what the military should do next Dominic-Madori Davis