Google's custom AI assistants are about to become hidden Gems. A couple of AI st
By Justin Lewis · October 21, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Google's custom AI assistants are about to become hidden Gems.
A couple of AI stories I saw recently made me stop and reflect.
Last year, I spent time helping entrepreneurs build their AI capability - better prompting, developing curated context, and building custom chatbots with their own personalities.
I'm a Claude advocate, but I taught Google's tools (Gemini, NotebookLM and Gems) because they offered the most capability for free. For startups, that matters.
On 17 November, Gems get tucked away in Gemini's settings, then converted into skills. A little later, on 11 December, OpenAI retires custom GPTs and moves them into skills (via plugins).
There's a bit of nostalgia, but this is the right direction.
Gems were like a finished Lego figure. You could change its hat or its pose, but it was still the same figure.
Skills are like bricks - smaller, focused pieces of know-how rather than an all-in-one assistant. What's really changed is that they're used dynamically. You set the objective, AI picks the bricks it needs, snaps them together for the task, then, like a project lead, hands parts of the job to smaller, cheaper agents, all working at the same time.
I've spent much of my career turning know-how into capability others could reuse. In organisations, that can be slow: one person, one course at a time. With AI, you create a skill once and every agent has it instantly.
But while AI can best reuse what we know, it still needs people to decide what's worth knowing.
That's why I start with the people doing the work, not the licences. They know which bricks matter.
So bye bye, Gems, and thank you. You helped people move beyond basic chatting, and you paved the way for thinking that's delivered real value.
What AI tool have you had to let go of this year?
#AI #SME #FutureOfWork #ChangeManagement #TransitionMission