Gemini skills (replacing Gems) for brand voice and repeat tasks

#01What changed from Gems to skills?

Google's help page says skills are available to people over 18 on personal Google Accounts, with work and school accounts following. The calling character is / today, and Google says it will soon change to @.

#02When do Gems go away?

Google's Workspace admin article says migrated skills keep the Gem's name, instructions, knowledge files and Drive permissions. It also notes some limits:

• Skills don't sync between the Gemini app and Workspace Studio. Recreate any you need in Studio.
• The "Ask a Gem" step can't be added to new Workspace Studio flows.
• Some Gem file types aren't supported in skills yet.

#03How do you create a skill?

From Google's help page, on the web:

1. Go to gemini.google.com. In the sidebar, click Customize > Skills. If you don't see Customize, click More first.
2. Click Create > Create manually.
3. Enter a name, a description and instructions. The name is converted to lowercase-with-hyphens.
4. Click Create.
5. To add files, click More options > Download next to the skill. This gives you a zip containing SKILL.md.
6. Put SKILL.md in a folder with your files. The folder name must match the skill name.
7. Back on the Skills page, click More options > Replace skill and upload the folder.

#04What should a brand-voice skill contain?

Google's best practices are short: define when to use it, keep it concise, and give examples. For marketing, that means:

Name: brand-voice-ledgerline
Description: Use when writing or editing any customer-facing copy for Ledgerline:
emails, social posts, web pages, ads, sales one-pagers.

Instructions:
- Voice: plain, confident, specific. Write for finance controllers.
- Always: short sentences, concrete numbers from the files, active voice.
- Never: "revolutionary", "seamless", "game-changing", exclamation marks.
- Spelling: US English. Product names: Ledgerline Approvals, Ledgerline Match.
- Proof: only use proof points from proof-points.md. If none fits, write [PROOF NEEDED].
- After drafting, list any claim not supported by the files.

Examples: see good-examples.md (3 posts, 2 emails) and bad-examples.md.
Files: positioning.md, proof-points.md, good-examples.md, bad-examples.md

#05Which skills should a marketing team build first?

Stacking is where skills beat Gems. "/brand-voice /linkedin-post Write three posts about the attached release notes" applies both sets of rules in one go.

#06How do you test a skill?

1. Run it on three real tasks you've already done by hand.
2. Compare the output with the human version. Note what's missing.
3. Add one rule or one example per gap. Don't add long explanations.
4. Test automatic use: write a prompt that should trigger the skill without naming it, and check whether Gemini applies it.
5. Test stacking with your most common pair.

Our view: examples beat rules. Three good examples and one bad example with a note on why it's bad teach tone better than twenty instructions.

#07How do you share skills across a team?

Because a skill is a SKILL.md file plus a folder, you can store the master copy in a shared Drive folder or a repository and keep a change log. Team members upload it themselves. Treat it like a style guide: one owner, versioned, reviewed each quarter. In Workspace, check what your admin allows. Skills for work accounts are rolling out after personal accounts.

#08Worked example: Ledgerline

Ledgerline is a fictional accounts-payable software company. Details are illustrative.

Ledgerline had 11 Gems across personal accounts, and nobody knew which were current.

Walkthrough

1. Marketing ops exported each Gem's instructions and knowledge files to a shared Drive folder.
2. The content lead merged three blog writer Gems into one brand-voice skill with a "when to use" description.
3. She added proof-points.md and good and bad example files, keeping the folder under 100 MB.
4. She tested the skill on three old posts and added two rules where it drifted.
5. The team agreed a stacking convention: /brand-voice plus one format skill.
6. Before 17 November 2026, every writer had uploaded the shared skills, and the old Gems were deleted.

#09Common mistakes

• Relying on auto-migration. Migrated Gems arrive as inactive drafts without a good "when to use" description.
• Writing a vague description. Automatic use depends on it.
• Overlong instructions. Keep only the rules unique to the task.
• No examples.
• Assuming skills sync to Workspace Studio. They don't. Recreate them there.

#10Try it yourself

Build a brand-voice skill with a description, ten rules at most, and three good examples. Test it on a past email, a past post and a past landing page section. Then stack it with a format skill and compare the results with your published versions.

#11Quick quiz

1. How do you call a skill in a chat?

Answer: Type / followed by the skill name. Google says this will soon change to @.

2. When do personal-account Gems become read-only?

Answer: 17 November 2026.

3. What's the file limit for a skill?

Answer: 100 MB.

#12What should you check before the next lesson?

• Your important Gems are recreated as skills, or scheduled for it.
• You have a brand-voice skill with examples, tested on three tasks.
• The master copies sit in a shared folder with an owner.

Previous: Gemini Deep Research for competitor and market research. Next: Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides and Workspace Studio. Or return to the Gemini for Marketers track. Related: Custom GPTs and skills for marketing teams, Claude Projects for brand voice, Gemini prompting.

#13Common questions

When do Gems go away? For personal Google Accounts, Gems become read-only on 17 November 2026 and are removed on 17 December 2026, with automatic migration to skills. Workspace business accounts change no sooner than 1 March 2027.

How do I use a skill? Type / followed by the skill name in any Gemini chat. Gemini can also apply a relevant skill automatically, and you can stack several skills in one chat.

Can a skill include files? Yes. A skill can include up to 100 MB of files. You add them by downloading the skill, putting SKILL.md in a folder with your files and uploading the folder.