'Hey Plex' mysteriously disappears from Galaxy S26 series (Update: Statement)

Update, March 17, 2026 (5:23 PM ET): It’s been a few days since we reached out to Samsung in regards to the confusing Perplexity wake word saga on the Galaxy S26, but we’ve finally received a response from the company with a statement. It doesn’t quite deliver the clarity we were hoping for, but at least (sort of) acknowledges what’s been going on:

The change is part of Samsung’s ongoing product refinement process. It relates only to the activation phrase and cross-app actions across select Samsung apps, and does not affect the availability, integration, or scope of the Perplexity experience on the Galaxy S26 series. Any future feature updates will be communicated if and when available.

Basically, the point Samsung is trying to emphasize here is that Perplexity support on the Galaxy S26 isn’t going away — despite that vanishing announcement. The end goal is the same deep integration we heard about before, presumably including full wake word support.

While the “refinement” currently underway is making that a bit messy, Samsung still seems committed to the S26 offering users their choice of AI assistants. That said, we’re hugely looking forward to those future updates hopefully clarifying exactly what that support will look like long-term.

Update, March 11, 2026 (11:30 PM ET): We’re still waiting to hear back from Samsung regarding our inquiry. In our original article, however, we noted that Perplexity CEO, Aravind Srinivas, posted on X saying the company planned to change the wake word for Perplexity on the Galaxy S26 series to “Hey Perplexity” instead of “Hey Plex.”

Just hours after confirming this, Srinivas deleted the post, once again fueling speculation about the AI assistant’s future on Samsung’s latest flagships.

Here’s what could be another piece of the puzzle: Remember Samsung’s announcement last month about bringing “Hey Plex” to the Galaxy S26 family? Samsung has taken down the original announcement from its online newsroom.

You can still view archived copies, and as far as we can see, Samsung doesn’t appear to have posted any specific correction to the announcement. (Thanks: Dylan H)

Original article, March 11, 2026 (12:21 PM ET): Samsung’s latest smartphone lineup is finally here, as the S26 series ends pre-orders and enters its phase of general retail availability. But as more and more Samsung fans get their hands on those S26 models, we’re noticing a spate of reports that claim the phone’s much-hyped Perplexity integration isn’t quite working. What’s going on here?

In the lead-up to its Galaxy S26 launch last month, Samsung teased that it would be making the phones a veritable AI-agent smorgasbord, offering users access to not just Bixby and Gemini, but also Perplexity — all nicely integrated with wake word support.

To hear the story from early S26 owners, that was all working fine — at first. Sammy Fans mentions full Plex integration working just as expected when initially setting up a Galaxy S26 Ultra, only to see “Hey Plex” wake word support seemingly vanish after installing the recent February update — the same one that delivered that handy “inactivity restart” mode.

Sure enough, even though Perplexity itself still functions, and can even be summoned by the phone’s side button, wake word support appears broken. This sort of half-measure of Perplexity support, particularly surrounding the wake word, crops up elsewhere on S26 devices. Tipster Dylan H shares this shot of the S26’s new settings screen for selecting your voice assistant:

Even prior to installing the February update, Perplexity was refusing to show up in this list. The app didn’t even come preinstalled on the handset, and while it worked after manually installing, Perplexity still wouldn’t appear here.

So, what in the world is going on with Samsung, Perplexity, and the Galaxy S26? We’ve reached out to our Samsung contacts in the hopes of getting an official comment to share with you, but in the meantime, we may have spotted the explanation coming from Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.

Responding to a user complaint about the S26 situation on X yesterday, Srinivas mentions that there’s currently an effort underway to transition from “Hey Plex” to a new “Hey Perplexity” wake word — and while he doesn’t out and say as much, it feels like he wants us to infer that this is a part of why things are so messy at the moment on the S26.

Considering that we already have another Plex, that move makes a fair amount of sense — but the timing here just could not be worse.

We’ll update this post with anything we’re ultimately able to confirm with Samsung.