A beginner’s guide to Google Gemini Gems

Wouldn’t it be nice to work with a generative AI tool that knows your workflows inside and out and can repeat tasks without receiving specific instructions each time? One that’s well-versed in your company’s products and brand guidelines, that you can collaborate with as you would a human co-worker?

That’s the intent behind Google’s Gems feature, an element of the company’s genAI chatbot, Gemini. Now available in several Google Workspace apps, Gems use Gemini to perform specific tasks or generate content tailored for you.

In this article:

How Gems extend Gemini

Who can use Gems

Use a premade Gem

Customize a premade Gem

Use your customized Gem

Edit your customized Gem

Build your own Gems (or don’t)

How Gems extend Gemini

When you interact with a genAI model such as Gemini, you type a prompt or make a request inside a chat box. In Google Workspace apps like Docs or Sheets, you typically interact with Gemini in a sidebar that appears along the right of your document. Gemini processes your input and generates a result: an answer to your query, a text passage, or a media output, such as an image or video clip.

You can also upload a document or other file for Gemini to use as a reference related to your request. For example, you can open a document in Google Docs and ask Gemini to summarize the key points in it. (For more on using Gemini in the Workspace apps, see “Google Workspace: 7 great ways to use the Gemini AI sidebar.”)

Gemini doesn’t remember previous sessions, so if you use it for the same tasks over and over, you need to feed it the same instructions and background info each time. That’s where Gems come in.

Gems are customized versions of Gemini meant for specific functions or areas of expertise. In some ways they’re similar to macros or scripts — you can set one up to perform a specified request or sequence of steps, which can be elaborate and go into intricate detail. But Gems can be tailored for your company’s style and workflows, and they tap into Gemini’s creative capabilities.

So if you ask Gemini to do the same task on a regular basis, such as summarizing meeting notes in a particular style and document format, you could create a Gem specifically for that purpose. Instead of having to type the request in the chat box and upload a document template each time you want a summary of the latest meeting, you can build a Gem with that innate knowledge.

Gems can also be more interactive and perform more complex tasks. For instance, you could create a marketing expert Gem with detailed knowledge of your industry, company products, customers, competitors, and house style, then interact with it for brainstorming or copy writing.

Google Workspace includes several premade Gems that you can use as-is. You’ll see some of them in the Gemini sidebar when you open it.

A few premade Gems appear by default in the Gemini sidebar.
Howard Wen / Foundry

You can also build your own Gems from scratch. But in this guide, we’ll focus on taking a premade Gem and changing it. In this way, you’ll learn by example, gaining an understanding of how best to instruct the AI. That will help you write your own Gems later if you’re so inclined.

Who can use Gems

All users with a Google Account who are at least 13 years old have access to Gems in the free Gemini web and mobile apps. But to use Gems (and other Gemini tools) in the Google Workspace apps, you’ll need a Gemini license.

For business users, that’s included with a Workspace Business Standard or greater plan. Note that if you have Workspace through your job, your company’s Workspace administrator can control whether Gemini features, including Gems, are enabled.

If you have a Google personal account, you can pay for a Google AI Pro or AI Ultra subscription to have access to Gems in the Workspace apps. Or, for no cost, you can sign up for access to Workspace Labs with your Google account.

Use a premade Gem

You can try out the premade Gems in the Gemini app or (with a Gemini license) in most of the Workspace apps. Note that you might have access to more or fewer prebuilt Gems depending on the type of account you’re using.

In a Workspace app (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Gmail): Click the nova star icon at the upper right. This will open the Gemini side panel. Scroll down to the “Gems” heading. Below it, there will be three premade Gems that you can select. To see more premade Gems, click the Gems heading itself.

Click the Gems heading in the Gemini sidebar to see the full list of premade Gems.
Howard Wen / Foundry

Select a premade Gem that describes what you want Gemini to do for you, such as Brainstormer, Career guide, Learning coach, or Writing editor.

For example, with a document open in Google Docs, select the Writing editor Gem in the Gemini side panel. When you do, four prewritten prompts will appear in the panel. Clicking one of these prompts will trigger Gemini to perform the action as described to your document: Recommend changes to this document…, Give me feedback on how I can formalize…, etc.

In the Gemini web app: At the upper left, click the three-bar icon (Expand menu) and select Explore Gems. This opens the “Gem manager” in the main area of the page. There will be four premade Gems on it that you can select from. To see more premade Gems, click Show more.

Accessing Gems in the Gemini web app.
Howard Wen / Foundry

When you click one of the premade Gems, a new screen will open. You’ll see several suggested prompts, or you can type in your own prompt in the chat box at the bottom of the screen.

In the Gemini mobile app (Android, iPhone, iPad): At the upper left, tap the three-bar icon (Open sidebar) and select Explore Gems. This switches to a page showing premade Gems that you can select from.

Tap one of the premade Gems, and it will open as a new Gemini chat screen. There will be four suggested prompts that you can scroll horizontally through to select, or you can enter your own prompt inside the chat box at the bottom of the screen.

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Howard Wen / Foundry

Customize a premade Gem

Although you can use Gems throughout most Google Workspace apps, you can create, edit, or delete Gems only in the Gemini web app. That includes customizing a premade Gem. To get started, click Explore Gems on the left sidebar to open the Gem manager in the main area of the page.

To modify a premade Gem, you first have to make a copy of it. Click the three-dot icon on the upper-right corner of the premade Gem that you want to modify and select Make a copy from the menu that appears.

The instruction set and other details for the premade Gem will open in the main area of the page.

You can adjust a copy of the premade Gem to make it your own.
Howard Wen / Foundry

By typing inside the text boxes of the four sections described below, you can change the premade Gem to suit your needs.

1. Name: Give the premade Gem a new name. It should clearly reflect the purpose for using it.

2. Instructions: This is the big one. As you can see by studying the premade Gems provided by Google, these instructions can go into very elaborate details. The premade “Writing editor” instructions, for example, detail the assistant’s purpose, goals, and overall direction in addition to step-by-step instructions for how to behave.

Studying the instructions in the premade Gems can help you learn how to write your own instructions.
Howard Wen / Foundry

Writing these detailed instructions can be mystifying. It might help to picture the kind of professional that you want Gemini to become for you — and, therefore, the kind of feedback and information that you want Gemini to provide you as it is acting in that role.

Keeping that in mind, we recommend studying the instructions of the premade Gems to get a sense of how these AI agents work. In a very general way, they break down to these four categories:

Persona: What kind of role do you want the Gem to take on?

Task: What do you want the Gem to create or do for you as this persona?

Context: How do you want the Gem to perform these tasks?

Format: How do you want the Gem to present its results to you?

Google provides examples of Gem instructions that break down these four categories to illustrate how they work.

To help refine the instructions that you rewrite/write so Gemini can understand them better, you can click the Use Gemini to re-write instructions button, a sparkly pencil icon. (This may be a tool you use more if you start creating your own Gems from scratch.)

3. Knowledge: Optionally, you can upload documents for the Gem to reference. These can be Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides files, or a wide variety of other file formats including Microsoft 365 (.docx,.pptx,.xlsx), PDF, TXT, and even image or video files. This is a great way to educate the Gem about your company’s products, style and formatting preferences, and so on. You can upload up to 10 files from your Google Drive or PC.

4. Preview: A chat box is on the right side. You can type in various prompts or click the microphone icon and chat with Gemini by voice, to test how the Gem responds to your changes. You can also upload a document or other file type for the Gem to analyze and perform an action from (e.g., summarize its key points).

5. Save: At the upper right corner, click the Save button when you’re finished modifying the premade Gem.

Use your customized Gem

After you’ve customized a premade Gem, it can be used in the Gemini web or mobile app or within your Google Workspace applications.

From the Gemini web app: Click the three-bar icon at the upper left to open the sidebar. Your customized Gem will appear listed. Select it and it’ll open in the main area of the page, ready for you to type your prompts or requests into its chat box.

From a Google Workspace app: Click the nova star icon at the upper right to open the Gemini side panel. Your customized Gem will be listed in the “Gems” area of the sidebar. Click it and its chat box will take up the entire side panel, ready for you to type your prompts or requests into.

Your custom Gem now appears in the Gemini sidebar, ready to interact with.
Howard Wen / Foundry

From the Gemini mobile app: Tap the speech balloon icon at the upper-left corner. Your customized Gem will appear below “Gems.” Tap it and its chat box will take up the whole screen, ready for you to enter your prompts or requests into.

Edit your customized Gem

You should periodically check your Gems, reviewing and refining their instructions and re-testing their actions to ensure they continue to operate optimally. If the Gem references documents or other files for context, you should also review these to see if they are still relevant.

In the Gemini web app, tap the three-bar icon to open the left sidebar. Move the pointer over your Gem and click the three-dot icon. From the small menu that opens, select Edit.

Or, on the left sidebar, select Explore Gems to open the Gem manager in the main area. You’ll see your customized Gem listed in the “Your Gems” area below the premade Gems. Click the pencil icon to its right.

Click the pencil icon next to your custom Gem to review, test, and edit its instructions.
Howard Wen / Foundry

Either action above will open the Gem’s page showing its instructions and other details. You can now make changes to it.

If you want to create a new version of a custom Gem without changing the original, go to the “Gem manager” page and click the three-dot icon to the right of your custom Gem. On the menu that appears, select Make a copy, and the new copy will open in the main window. Now you can rename and modify this copy just as you did when customizing the premade Gem.

Build your own Gems (or don’t)

Once you’ve customized several premade Gems, you might feel confident enough to start creating your own Gems from scratch. If you want to give it a try, open the main “Gem manager” page in the Gemini web app, then click the New Gem button to the upper-right of your gems list.

You’ll see the same interface as when you customize a premade Gem, except all the fields will be blank. Fill them out using the lessons you learned while adapting premade Gems.

Or just keep customizing the prebuilt Gems for your own needs. We won’t judge.