AI Skills Offer Personalized Assistance for Repetitive Tasks
Translated & summarized from Calcalist by baba
AI "Skills" allow users to create custom instruction sets for tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, enabling them to perform repetitive tasks efficiently. Pioneered by Anthropic, this feature allows for personalized AI assistance, reducing the need for repeated detailed prompts. Alex Khoroshyn leads a community effort, Skills IL, offering over 200 skills for Israeli users. While basic skill creation is often free, advanced functionalities may require subscriptions, and users must be vigilant about the security of third-party skills.
The story in 6 lines · by baba
- AI "Skills" enable custom instruction sets for tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to perform repetitive tasks efficiently.
- Anthropic pioneered AI Skills in October 2025, with OpenAI and Google adopting the technology shortly after.
- Skills can be process-oriented, teaching actions, or knowledge-oriented, providing specialized information.
- Alex Khoroshyn leads Skills IL, a library of over 200 skills tailored for Israeli users.
- Creating and using basic skills is generally free on Claude and Gemini, but may cost on ChatGPT.
- Users should carefully review third-party skills for security risks before installation.
Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can be enhanced with "Skills," custom packages of instructions, knowledge, and tools that allow AI models to perform specific tasks repeatedly without requiring detailed prompts each time. Anthropic, the developer of Claude, pioneered this feature in October 2025, with OpenAI and Google quickly following suit. Skills can be categorized as either "process skills," which teach the AI how to perform an action, or "knowledge skills," which provide specialized information. Alex Khoroshyn, a software engineer and owner of Yootech, has developed Skills IL, a library of over 200 skills tailored for Israeli users, covering areas from insurance and taxes to developer tools.
Skills offer several advantages over standard prompts. They allow users to encapsulate recurring actions into a single file, activated by a simple trigger phrase instead of a lengthy explanation. Skills can also orchestrate complex workflows, defining the order of operations, validation steps, and error handling. Furthermore, their standardized format, SKILL.md, promotes portability across different AI platforms, unlike proprietary projects. The decision to create a skill should be based on task complexity and frequency; simple, one-off requests are better suited for regular prompts.
Creating and using skills is generally free on Claude and Gemini, though advanced features may incur costs. ChatGPT's skill creation is primarily for enterprise users, but private users can create them via plugins or the desktop application. The simplest way to create a skill involves performing the desired action in a regular chat and then asking the AI to package it. Users can then manage and edit their skills through sidebars in their respective AI interfaces. Key to a successful skill are clear descriptions, specific trigger words, focused instructions, and illustrative examples. It's also crucial to ensure the underlying knowledge remains relevant and to update it periodically.
Advanced skill usage includes chaining multiple skills together for complex processes, such as analyzing a document, generating a report, and drafting an email. Connectors allow AI tools to interact with external services like Gmail or Google Sheets, automating tasks like weekly expense reports. Skills can be scheduled for regular execution, further enhancing automation. While skills are designed to be cross-platform, some adjustments may be necessary due to platform-specific limitations. Users should exercise caution when installing third-party skills, carefully reviewing their instructions and associated files to prevent potential security risks, such as unauthorized data access or malicious code execution.