Galaxy S26 series, including the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra, is finally here. The phones are now hitting general availability status. Among the many upgrades and changes, they get Perplexity integration. This sits alongside the company’s own Bixby and Google Gemini AI assistants. However, as users start getting their hands on the Galaxy S26, reports are surfacing that the “Hey Plex” wake word for Perplexity AI has mysteriously disappeared.
Galaxy S26’s ‘Hey Plex’ wake word suddenly disappeared
Samsung teamed up with Perplexity to bring the AI assistant to the Galaxy S26 series. As said, it sits alongside Bixby and Google Gemini. Sammy Fans report mentions that the Plex integration was working just as expected when setting up their Galaxy S26 Ultra. However, the ‘Hey Plex’ wake word support reportedly vanished after installing the recent February update.
That said, Perplexity itself is still functional, where it can be opened manually or triggered with the phone’s side button. It is only the hands-free wake word feature that is missing. In fact, it doesn’t even appear in the voice assistant settings menu, even with the Perplexity app installed.
Uncertainty continues
While it’s not clear what’s going on, a possible explanation has briefly surfaced on X. Coming from Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, no less. Responding to a user’s complaint about the Galaxy S26 Perplexity integration, the CEO responded that the company is switching the wake word from “Hey Plex” to “Hey Perplexity.”
But then again, shortly after posting that response, Srinivas deleted that reply. This adds to the uncertainty around what is actually happening with the integration behind the scenes. The timing of this is also bad, as phones have hit store shelves, and many users were only just beginning to try the feature.
To make things even more complex, Samsung has removed its original newsroom announcement about bringing “Hey Plex” to the Galaxy S26 series. The archived versions of the announcements are still there, but Samsung hasn’t posted any specific corrections to the announcement. This could possibly be hinting that the company is adjusting how Perplexity works on the Galaxy S26. We hope there’s a proper explanation soon.
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