Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Samsung has partnered with Perplexity to function the AI as an assistant possibility on the Galaxy S26 collection.
- New homeowners have been confused by inconsistent Perplexity wake phrase help.
- A remark by Perplexity’s CEO suggests this can be tied to a shift to “Hey Perplexity.”
Replace, March 11, 2026 (9:48 PM ET): We’re nonetheless hoping to listen to again from Samsung with regard to our inquiry, however right here’s what may very well be one other piece of the puzzle: Keep in mind Samsung’s announcement final month about bringing “Hey Plex” to the Galaxy S26 household? Samsung has taken down the unique announcement from its on-line newsroom.
You may nonetheless view archived copies, and so far as we are able to see, Samsung doesn’t seem to have posted any particular correction to the announcement. (Thanks: Dylan H)
Authentic article, March 11, 2026 (12:21 PM ET): Samsung’s newest smartphone lineup is lastly right here, because the S26 collection ends pre-orders and enters its section of normal retail availability. However as increasingly more Samsung followers get their arms on these S26 fashions, we’re noticing a spate of experiences that declare the cellphone’s much-hyped Perplexity integration isn’t fairly working. What’s occurring right here?
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Within the lead-up to its Galaxy S26 launch final month, Samsung teased that it might be making the telephones a veritable AI-agent smorgasbord, providing customers entry to not simply Bixby and Gemini, but additionally Perplexity — all properly built-in with wake phrase help.
To listen to the story from early S26 homeowners, that was all working high-quality — at first. Sammy Followers mentions full Plex integration working simply as anticipated when initially establishing a Galaxy S26 Extremely, solely to see “Hey Plex” wake phrase help seemingly vanish after putting in the latest February replace — the identical one which delivered that helpful “inactivity restart” mode.
Positive sufficient, despite the fact that Perplexity itself nonetheless features, and might even be summoned by the cellphone’s facet button, wake phrase help seems damaged. This form of half-measure of Perplexity help, significantly surrounding the wake phrase, crops up elsewhere on S26 gadgets. Tipster Dylan H shares this shot of the S26’s new settings display for choosing your voice assistant:
Even previous to putting in the February replace, Perplexity was refusing to point out up on this listing. The app didn’t even come preinstalled on the handset, and whereas it labored after manually putting in, Perplexity nonetheless wouldn’t seem right here.
So, what on the planet is happening with Samsung, Perplexity, and the Galaxy S26? We’ve reached out to our Samsung contacts within the hopes of getting an official remark to share with you, however within the meantime, we might have noticed the reason coming from Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.
Responding to a consumer grievance concerning the S26 state of affairs on X yesterday, Srinivas mentions that there’s presently an effort underway to transition from “Hey Plex” to a brand new “Hey Perplexity” wake phrase — and whereas he doesn’t out and say as a lot, it seems like he needs us to deduce that this is part of why issues are so messy in the mean time on the S26.
Contemplating that we have already got one other Plex, that transfer makes a good quantity of sense — however the timing right here simply couldn’t be worse.
We’ll replace this submit with something we’re in the end in a position to verify with Samsung.
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