If you built a Gem for your marketing briefs, your client reports or your study notes, the clock is running. Google is replacing Gems with skills, and for personal accounts the switch starts on November 17.
Most of the coverage is about how to move a Gem into a Gemini skill. That's worth doing. But it's also the moment to ask a bigger question: should the way you do your best work live inside one AI app at all?
What Google is changing, and when
According to Google's help page on the transition, for personal Google accounts:
November 17, 2026: Gems turn into skills and become read-only. You can still open a Gem, but you can't use it, edit it or create new ones.
December 17, 2026: Gems are removed from the Gemini app, and you lose access to them. This is also the last day to download your Gem's files.
Other accounts move later: March 2027 for Google Workspace business, enterprise and nonprofit accounts, and June 2027 for Workspace education accounts. Accounts for people under 18 convert later, on a date Google hasn't announced.
What moves to a skill, and what doesn't
Google converts each Gem into a skill automatically. You can also recreate one yourself by copying its name, description and instructions into a new skill and uploading its knowledge files.
Some things don't come along:
Large files. Skills have a 100 MB limit. If your Gem's files go over it, the largest ones are dropped first.
Some file types. Audio, video, GitHub files, older Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) and archives such as .zip aren't carried over.
Many of Gemini's tools. Create video, Create music, Canvas, Deep Research and Guided Learning don't work with skills.
Google's page doesn't say what happens to Gems you've shared with other people. If other people use your Gem, plan as if they'll need a new way in.
The good news: skills are an open format
Here's the part most people miss. A Gemini skill uses the same building block as Claude's skills: a SKILL.md file with a name, a description and instructions, plus any reference files. In XDA's hands-on test, Gemini accepted a single SKILL.md, a whole skill folder, or a zip, and the writer moved Claude Code skills straight in.
That means your Gem can stop being "a Gemini thing." Written once as a skill, the same method can run in Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and the AI agents that support the open Agent Skills standard.
What a skill file doesn't give you on its own is a team. XDA found that sharing skills in Gemini was still a few weeks out. And even once it arrives, a colleague on ChatGPT or a client in Claude can't use a skill that lives in your Gemini account.
Before November 17: a checklist
Work through this for each Gem that matters, while you can still use it.
1. Copy your instructions into a document you control. They're the most valuable part of the Gem.
2. Download your knowledge files, and note any that won't carry over: audio, video, zips and old Office files. Convert those you need to a supported format.
3. Note the tools it relies on. If the Gem leans on Deep Research, Canvas or another tool that skills don't support, decide how you'll do that step instead.
4. List who uses it. Just you, your team, or clients and students? That decides where it should live next.
5. Test the converted skill after November 17 and compare a few results with what the Gem produced.
Make your Gem a skill that runs everywhere
If you're the only one who uses your Gem, and you only use Gemini, Google's conversion is probably all you need.
If other people use it, or you don't want your method tied to one company's product decisions, bring it to Skillyo. Paste your Gem's instructions, or upload it as a SKILL.md, add its files, and it becomes a skill with a short form anyone can fill in.
Run it from any AI app. The same skill runs from Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Grok, from AI agents like Muse, Dots and Claude Duet, from a link, or on your website. Your colleague on ChatGPT and your client in Claude get the same quality of result you get in Gemini.
Share it with a team. Put it in a skillspace with your team or a client, with the brand, files and context every run reads. Every result lands in one place everyone can see.
Pick the model. You choose the model for each skill, and it runs on that model whichever app starts it.
Keep it portable. Skillyo skills follow the open Agent Skills standard. Export any skill as a SKILL.md and install it in Gemini, Claude Code or any other tool that supports the standard. If an app changes the rules again, your method doesn't have to move.
If you're on Google Workspace
Your Gems keep working until March 2027, so there's no rush this month. But the same choice is coming, and a team rarely all uses one AI app. It's a good time to pick one Gem your team relies on and make it a skill that runs wherever each person works.
A Gem was a way to write down how you do something so AI could do it your way. That idea doesn't retire on December 17. Start free, bring your first Gem, and make it a skill your whole team can run from any AI app.