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At Meta Connect 2026, the tech giant unveiled a suite of AI hardware, including its new lightweight Meta VR Glasses and camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio frames. Central to the software reveals was an expansion of Meta's Muse AI, featuring a new desktop capability that allows the assistant to autonomously operate apps on Mac computers, along with a handheld companion called Muse Charm. These moves underscore Meta’s strategy to embed AI deeply into daily hardware and software workflows, competing directly against rivals like Apple and OpenAI. Pre-orders for the audio frames are live now, while the VR Glasses ship in spring 2027.

This past week OpenAI announced that custom GPTs, which are custom versions of ChatGPT focused on performing a single conversational task, are being retired on December 11, 2026. Worried about losing access to that handy GPT that made your life easier? It’s not all bad news, as your favorite custom GPT can be migrated to a plugin. More specifically, the instructions governing the behavior of the custom GPT can become a skill for the associated plugin. Not sure what these terms mean? Check out the “AI term of the week” section below, or drop in to our “Skills, Plugins and Connectors” AI Lunch Club session next month (see below).

After OpenAI launched custom GPTs in ChatGPT, Google followed suit by launching custom Gems within Gemini. Now, just as OpenAI is retiring custom GPTs, Google is once again following suit, albeit a bit earlier, replacing Gems with skills on November 17, 2026. However, unlike OpenAI’s approach, where users will actively have to migrate their GPTs, Gemini will perform the migration of Gems automatically for users.

Lean TECHniques works alongside Midwest companies to leverage technology for business impact. Through advisory, coaching, and embedded delivery, Lean TECHniques helps organizations develop high-performing teams, create environments that fuel innovation, and deliver best-in-class customer experiences. Core areas of expertise include software, cloud, artificial intelligence, product management, and technology leadership.

Adobe has expanded its Claude plugin to integrate Acrobat tools directly into the chat, making it significantly easier to work with PDFs without switching apps. Through simple prompts, users can now delete, combine, split, or reorder PDF pages, redact sensitive information, convert file formats, and use an interactive editor to modify text, add highlights, and review AI-generated document suggestions.

This update builds on the existing Adobe plugin for Claude, which connects users to more than 80 tools across Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe Express, and Adobe Stock. Beyond managing PDFs, users can edit photos in bulk, create and resize videos, and generate design assets directly inside their conversations. The plugin can be installed via Claude's settings menu, and users can initiate creation by connecting their Adobe account and typing "/adobe" in any chat.

Here’s a fun one that has been trending on social media recently.

Microsoft rebuilt Copilot around three parts. Home puts chat, delegated work, and Office docs in one place. Code builds apps, dashboards, and automations from a description. Autopilot is an agent that keeps working after you close the chat.

In light of the news that custom GPTs are being replaced with skills that get used within plugins, we thought we’d highlight two terms this week. We will cover both of these in our free AI Lunch Club on Oct. 14.

Plugin: An add-on that gives an AI tool new abilities it doesn‘t have out of the box, like connecting to your calendar, searching a company database, or following a specific workflow for tasks like contract review or sales reporting. On its own, a large language model can only work with what you type in and what it learned in training. A plugin extends its reach to your apps, files, and processes.

The term goes back to 2023, when ChatGPT launched its first plugins for things like booking travel and ordering groceries. Today the same idea shows up under different names (connectors, extensions, apps), and the packaging keeps changing, but the idea is the same. For organizations, using plugins might mean the difference between an AI that gives generic answers and one that works with your actual data and tools. It’s also worth a security check before you install one: a plugin can only do what you‘ve given it access to, so it‘s worth knowing exactly what that is.

Skill: A packaged set of instructions that teaches an AI how to do a specific kind of task your way, like formatting a weekly report, reviewing a contract against your company‘s checklist, or writing in your brand voice. Instead of retyping the same long instructions every time, you write them down once, and the AI pulls them up whenever the task comes around.

You can think of a skill as a training manual for a new hire. The employee is already smart, but they don‘t know how your organization does things. A skill supplies that missing know-how. Here’s where the analogy breaks down: A skill is loaded only when it’s relevant, so it doesn’t clutter the model’s context window the rest of the conversation. Skills can be as simple as a single text document of written guidelines or as involved as a set of instructions plus templates and scripts. For organizations, they‘re a way to capture how your best people do a task and make it repeatable for everyone else. Just like with plugins, it‘s worth reviewing what a skill instructs the AI to do before you turn it on.

Miss out on any previous AI terms of the week? Check out our Glossary of AI terms, where we’re collecting all entries in the series. And if you want us to define a term in an upcoming newsletter, let us know!

The Innovation Profs are Drake University Professors Chris Porter and Chris Snider. Porter leads Drake’s Artificial Intelligence major and Snider is a multimedia professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.