# Gemini Gems and custom GPTs are retiring: a plan for your company > For European companies where someone built a Gemini Gem or a custom GPT for quotes, customer emails or pricing. Dates by account type, what will not carry over, and five steps for November. - **Canonical URL:** https://appwave.dev/en/blog/gemini-gems-and-custom-gpts-retiring-company-plan - **Language:** en - **Updated:** 2026-11-13 --- - **Published:** 2026-11-13 - **Author:** Mateusz Cieśliński - Co-Founder, DevOps Engineer - **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateusz-cie%C5%9Bli%C5%84ski/ - **Reading time (min):** 6 - **Topics:** Gemini, ChatGPT, AI agent, Shadow AI ![Five boxes of notes: two emptied onto the desk, three moved into a shared locked chest next to a calendar with marked days.](https://cms.appwave.dev/uploads/gemini_gems_and_custom_gpts_retiring_company_plan_af1593a118.webp) **As of 30 October 2026: Gemini Gems on personal Google accounts become read only on 17 November and are removed on 17 December. On Google Workspace work accounts they keep running until at least 1 March 2027. OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs on 11 December. Assistants holding your prices or quote templates need a decision now.** For a business, this is more than a moved button. A Gem or a custom GPT often holds your instructions, brand voice, price list and quote templates. If someone built it on a personal account, your company has no control over it, and under GDPR you may not even know which customer data went into it. ## What is changing in Gemini and ChatGPT Google and OpenAI are closing their custom assistants at almost the same time and moving them to a new format. A Gem is a saved version of Gemini with its own instructions and files, opened from the side panel. Google is replacing Gems with skills: also saved instructions and files, but you call them inside an ordinary chat by typing a slash. Google announced the change on 30 September 2026 on the Workspace Updates blog. Skills use the open SKILL.md format, so skills from other platforms can be copied in. OpenAI announced on 11 September 2026 that it will retire custom GPTs and replace them with plugins. A GPT's instructions become a skill inside a plugin. **Custom actions, the links between a GPT and your other systems, do not carry over in the migration.** They have to be rebuilt through an available app connection or your own MCP server, a small service that exposes your system's data and functions to the model. Chats and sharing settings do not move either. ## What happens when: the dates by account The deadline depends on where the assistant was built. Check that first. - **Gemini, personal Google account.** What happens: gem goes read only, then is removed. Date: 17 November and 17 December 2026. What to do: save instructions before 17 November; files can be downloaded until 17 December. - **Gemini, Google Workspace Business, Enterprise (Nonprofit: March 2027).** What happens: gems move to Settings and keep working, later become draft skills. Date: 17 November 2026, then no sooner than 1 March 2027. What to do: rebuild the important Gems as skills before March. - **Workspace Studio flow with an "Ask a Gem" step.** What happens: no new steps of this kind, existing ones stop. Date: no sooner than 1 March 2027. What to do: list the flows and swap the step for a skill. - **ChatGPT, custom GPT.** What happens: migration to a plugin, then retirement. Date: 11 December 2026; reports differ on whether the date is firm for every plan; deferral to 11 February 2027 only for approved Enterprise workspaces. What to do: treat 11 December as your deadline, migrate and rebuild custom actions. Two Google pages seem to disagree. The Workspace announcement says Gems keep working on 17 November. The help page for personal accounts says they become read only that day. Both are right, because they describe different accounts. One caveat: on 13 October Google added that skills in Workspace Studio and Workspace apps are delayed. Check they are on your account before you plan a rebuild. ![Timeline: personal-account Gems read only from 17 Nov, removed 17 Dec; GPTs until 11 Dec; Workspace from March 2027.](https://cms.appwave.dev/uploads/gemini_gems_and_custom_gpts_retiring_company_plan_diagram_d398973d64.webp) ## What we see in the market: AI answers mix up the accounts Ask an AI model about this and you may get the wrong answer. We checked several on 30 October 2026. Google's AI Mode, asked in the UK how this affects a business, said that "nothing sudden or catastrophic happens" on 17 November. That holds for Workspace, but not for staff who built Gems on personal Gmail accounts. Perplexity and Claude, asked in Polish, said that custom GPTs are not affected at all. They are. Check dates at the source. Better still, read the notice on your own account. ## What will not carry over Automatic migration keeps the name, description, instructions, supported files and Drive sharing settings. Everything else is work. Google's and OpenAI's documentation lists these limits: - a skill takes at most 100 MB of files, and for larger Gems Google drops the largest files first; - GitHub files, audio, video, archives (e.g. .zip, .rar) and legacy Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) are not supported; - on work accounts, a Gem from the Gemini app becomes an inactive draft that its creator must review and switch on; - skills in the Gemini app and in Workspace apps do not sync, so a company has to create them in both places; - in ChatGPT, custom actions, chats, the selected model and sharing do not carry over, and OpenAI warns that a migrated plugin "may respond differently". That last point applies to everyone. After the move, you have a new assistant. ## What this means for your company **Probable conclusion.** In companies with 10-200 staff, some Gems and GPTs were built on personal accounts because it was quickest. We wrote about this pattern in our piece on [shadow AI and personal ChatGPT accounts](https://appwave.dev/en/blog/shadow-ai-personal-chatgpt-accounts-small-business). Those assistants go first, on 17 December, and the company may only notice then. Basis: personal accounts have the earliest date, and only the account owner sees the in-app notice. **Probable conclusion.** The hardest hit will be assistants connected to other systems, such as a GPT that checked order status in your shop or logged leads in your CRM. Their actions need rebuilding. That is a job for someone who knows both systems, not for whoever wrote the prompt. **Hypothesis to test.** A Gem that relies on a price list in an old .xls file may answer worse after migration, because the file will not transfer and the new skill will not tell you anything is missing. If your assistant quotes prices, test it on real customer questions. We explain why models get pricing wrong in [RAG vs fine-tuning](https://appwave.dev/en/blog/rag-vs-fine-tuning-why-ai-gets-your-pricing-wrong). Behind all of this sits one question owners ask us: where does our customers' data end up? The move is a chance to answer it. ## What to do this week Start with an inventory, not with migration. Five steps cover the first week of November: 1. Ask your team directly who has a Gem or a custom GPT, what it does and which account it sits on. No blame. 2. For each assistant, save its instructions, knowledge files and three example questions with good answers to company storage. 3. Move assistants on personal accounts that write quotes, customer emails or give prices to a work account, as a skill or a plugin, before 17 November. 4. In Workspace Studio and ChatGPT, list the flows that use an "Ask a Gem" step or custom GPT actions. That is your rebuild list for December and March. 5. After the move, compare old and new answers on the same examples. Keep a person approving anything with a price or a date, as we describe in our piece on [human oversight of AI](https://appwave.dev/en/blog/human-in-the-loop-ai-human-oversight-in-a-small-business). If a skill or plugin has to work on data from your own systems, an [AI agent built on your data](https://appwave.dev/en/services/ai-agents) may be the better home. The difference between a skill and an agent is in [why an agent alone is not enough](https://appwave.dev/en/blog/agentic-ai-skills-why-an-agent-alone-is-not-enough). We build these with your team, so that someone on your side understands what runs and why after we step back. We are not a Google or OpenAI partner. We have not tested the migration on a ChatGPT Enterprise account, and we could not open OpenAI's retirement FAQ on 30 October, so the OpenAI dates come from press reports that quote it. ## Sources - Google, Gemini Apps Help, "About the transition from Gems to skills", [https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/18560919?hl=en](https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/18560919?hl=en) (accessed 30 October 2026) - Google Workspace Help, "About the transition from Gems to skills", [https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/generative-ai/gemini-app/about-the-transition-to-skills](https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/generative-ai/gemini-app/about-the-transition-to-skills) (accessed 30 October 2026) - Google Workspace Updates, "Introducing skills in the Gemini app and Workspace, plus what's next for Gems", 30 September 2026, [https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/09/skills-gemini-app-workspace.html](https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2026/09/skills-gemini-app-workspace.html) (accessed 30 October 2026) - OpenAI, "Custom GPT retirement and migration FAQ", [https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001519-custom-gpt-retirement-and-migration-faq](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001519-custom-gpt-retirement-and-migration-faq) (could not be opened on 30 October 2026) - Virtualization Review, "OpenAI to Retire Custom GPTs, Replace Them with Plugins", 28 September 2026, [https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2026/09/28/openai-to-retire-custom-gpts-replace-them-with-plugins.aspx](https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2026/09/28/openai-to-retire-custom-gpts-replace-them-with-plugins.aspx) (accessed 30 October 2026) - MIXED, "OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs, here's what carries over to plugins", [https://mixed-news.com/en/openai-retiring-custom-gpts-what-carries-over-to-plugins/](https://mixed-news.com/en/openai-retiring-custom-gpts-what-carries-over-to-plugins/) (accessed 30 October 2026) ## Questions & Answers (FAQ) ### When will Gemini Gems disappear from a personal Google account? According to Google's Gemini Apps Help page, on 17 November 2026 Gems on personal accounts of users aged 18 or over turn into skills and become read only. On 17 December 2026 they are removed from Gemini Apps. You can download the files attached to a Gem until 17 December. Under-18 accounts follow later. ### Will Gems on a Google Workspace work account stop on 17 November? No. On 17 November, Gems on Workspace Business, Enterprise and Nonprofit accounts move to Settings in the Gemini app and keep working. Creating, editing and using them ends no sooner than 1 March 2027 on Business and Enterprise, and in March 2027 on Nonprofit. Workspace Studio flows with an "Ask a Gem" step stop working at the same point. ### Will my Gem become a skill automatically? Partly. Google converts Gems in the Gemini app into skills automatically, with supported files, but on work accounts they arrive as inactive drafts that the creator has to review and switch on. Gems used inside Workspace apps are not migrated: they have to be rebuilt by hand in Workspace Studio. ### What is happening to custom GPTs in ChatGPT? OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs and replacing them with plugins. The scheduled date is 11 December 2026, and press reports say timing can vary by plan and workspace. Only ChatGPT Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral can keep them until 11 February 2027. Custom actions do not carry over in the migration workflow. ### Where should a 30-person company start? With an inventory. Ask your team who built a Gem or a custom GPT, what it does and which account it lives on. Assistants on personal accounts that write quotes, customer emails or quote prices move first. Save their instructions and files to company storage before anything is removed. --- ## About AppWave AI development company from Łódź, Poland. We build custom AI software, automation agents and web applications. We co-create them with the client and guarantee every system we deliver. - **Legal name:** AppWave sp. z o.o. - **Address:** ul. Kolumny 147E/1, 93-611 Łódź, Poland - **Phone:** +48 538 441 413 - **Email:** office@appwave.dev - **Business hours:** Monday-Friday, 09:00-17:00 - [Book a Free Consultation](https://appwave.dev/en/appointment)