Skills in Google Workspace: Gemini applies team rules in Gmail, Docs, and Slides

Google is introducing Skills in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Drive and Chat: saved instructions that Gemini uses to apply a team's rules, templates and reference files. Domains on Rapid Release, the setting for early updates, have had the feature since November 9, 2026, and domains on Scheduled Release will get it from November 30.

For German-speaking teams, there is a catch: Skills currently only understand English prompts and instructions. Google has not yet said when more languages will follow.

How do you build a Skill?

The starting point is Google Workspace Studio. There you build a Skill from scratch, start with one of the new templates, or edit the Markdown file SKILL.md directly. Before switching it on, you test how the Skill generates email drafts, documents or presentations. In Google Docs, you draft Skills together with colleagues. In Gmail, Docs, Slides, Drive and Chat, a single prompt to Gemini is enough to create, refine and test a Skill.

Once a Skill is switched on, Gemini recognizes by itself when it fits a request, according to Google. You can also call up one or more Skills with an @. In addition, a Skill triggers Flows in Workspace Studio whose starting step is called "Start manually" or "On a schedule". Google gives as examples a consistent brand tone in emails, quotes and customer presentations, checking contracts and invoices against policies from Drive, and recurring status reports from meeting notes, chats and Drive files.

Where do Skills not apply?

Creating, editing, testing and sharing only work on the web. You can call up Skills on the web and in the Chat app for Android and iOS. Google Sheets and Google Meet remain without Skills for the time being. Users under 18 do not get the feature.

Skills from Workspace and from the Gemini app form separate libraries. Because both use the open SKILL.md format, you copy instructions over by hand. TutKit described the Gemini app in Gems become Skills. The automatic migration of remaining Gems in 2027 creates drafts exclusively in the Gemini app, not in Workspace. New "Ask a Gem" steps can no longer be created in Studio Flows.

Which plans get Skills?

Google lists Business Starter, Standard and Plus as well as Enterprise Starter, Standard and Plus, plus the add-ons Google AI Pro for Education and AI Expanded Access. Personal Google accounts are not on the list, and the post does not state a price. Skills are switched on by default in the plans. Admins turn the feature off in the Admin console for a domain, organizational unit or group. Whether you may share a Skill externally depends on the sharing settings of Workspace Studio. The activity is recorded in the Studio log.

What this means for you

If you work in one of the listed plans, it is best to check in the Admin console whether Skills are switched on for your domain. If your domain is on Scheduled Release, the feature appears from November 30 and is visible everywhere up to 15 days later.

As a first step, build yourself a Skill for the brand tone of your emails. Start with a template in Workspace Studio and record tone and structure in English. Because Skills only know English instructions for the time being, test the drafts thoroughly before a customer gets to see one of them.

If you share a Skill with the team, each person receives their own copy. Later changes do not affect copies that colleagues have already received. So share the Skill again after a change. If it references files in Drive, you additionally need to share those files with your colleagues.

Google announced the new feature on November 10, 2026 in the Workspace Updates blog.

Sources

• Google Workspace Updates Blog: Scale customized AI across your team with skills in Google Workspace and Workspace Studio