Google brings Gemini Gems customization to all users for free

Google is democratizing personalized AI interactions by extending its Gemini Gems feature to all users without requiring a subscription. This customization tool allows anyone over 18 to create specialized chatbot experiences, enabling more tailored AI assistance for specific tasks across education, career development, and personal projects. While Google arrives somewhat late to the customizable AI assistant space, its approach offers unique advantages for non-paying users.

The big picture: Google has made Gemini Gems available to all users aged 18+ across web and mobile platforms, allowing anyone to create specialized AI assistants without requiring a paid subscription.

• Gems can be accessed on both the web interface and through Gemini’s Android and iOS apps, though creation of new Gems is limited to the browser version at gemini.google.com.
• Users can either select from five premade options (Brainstormer, Career Guide, Coding Partner, Learning Coach, and Writing Editor) or create custom Gems by providing specific instructions.

How it works: Creating custom Gems involves a straightforward process where users define parameters and instructions for their specialized assistant through an easy-to-use interface.

• Users describe what they want the Gem to do and outline specific parameters or considerations it should take into account.
• Gemini then implements these instructions to create a specialized assistant that maintains those parameters throughout conversations.
• The feature is accessible through the Gem manager in the account menu on mobile or via the side panel on the web interface.

Real-world application: The customization capabilities allow for surprisingly detailed and practical AI assistants, as demonstrated by the authors’ test case.

• A test to create a fitness coach Gem produced impressive results, generating a solid workout plan that accommodated specific health conditions—something often missed by dedicated fitness apps.
• While the fitness Gem had some limitations, such as not requesting starting weight information, its overall performance demonstrated the system’s practical value.

Beyond customization: Google has been aggressively expanding Gemini’s capabilities across its product ecosystem in recent weeks.

• Google Sheets recently received a Gemini-powered AI overhaul that enables faster data analysis, identifying trends, correlations, and outliers while automatically generating charts.
• Paid subscribers will gain access to Gemini 2.5, which Google claims offers enhanced reasoning, coding proficiency, multimodal functionalities, and superior contextual understanding.

Competitive context: Google’s approach to customization offers unique advantages despite arriving later than some competitors.

• While ChatGPT introduced custom GPTs nearly a year ago, creating them requires a paid subscription—giving Google’s free creation capability an edge for non-paying users.
• The browser-only creation limitation represents a tradeoff in Google’s implementation compared to competitors.