UNITED STATES: Google will shut down Opal, its experimental artificial intelligence app builder, on November 17, 2026, ending interactive use of its mini-apps.
The closure includes Gems made by Labs within Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, according to developer guidance updated on September 30.
“Existing Opal workflows will not automatically migrate, so you’ll need to set up any new skills or prompts manually,” Google said.
Saved files will remain in the Opal folder under My Drive in Google Drive. Google recommends copying wanted prompts before closure. Afterwards, downloaded workflow files can be opened in a plain-text editor to retrieve those instructions.
Google directs users towards skills in Gemini for reusable chat instructions and Google AI Studio for more detailed prompt experiments.
Earlier coverage examined Google’s Gemini 3.8 Flash launch and its coding capabilities.
Opal allows people to connect AI prompts and tools into a sequence of steps without writing code. Its visual editor can combine a user’s input with generated material and turn the results into a webpage or a spreadsheet. Publishing an app creates a link through which other people can use it.
The shutdown accompanies a wider change to Gemini’s customisation tools. In a September 30 announcement, Deven Tokuno, senior product manager for the Gemini app, said skills were being introduced directly into Gemini chat. Users can save instructions and call them up again by typing a forward slash followed by the skill’s name.
Google said ordinary Gems would transfer automatically when support for them ends. Its announcement separately excludes Gems built through Google Labs from that transfer. The timetable for ending ordinary Gems begins in November for personal accounts, with different dates for Workspace customers.
Skills can include reference documents or images, and several can be used together, according to Google. Sharing skills and adding material from Google Drive were among the features it said would follow in the coming weeks.
Okay News reports that Google launched Opal as a public test in the United States in July 2025. By November that year, the company had expanded it to more than 160 countries.
Google’s examples of how people used Opal included collecting web research into spreadsheets and producing newsletter updates. It also described apps for creating marketing material and testing ideas such as language-learning tools.
Google will also archive the Breadboard code library and the Opal backend repository after the shutdown. Their code will remain publicly accessible under open-source licences, while hosted web services will close.
