Perplexity CEO responds after Galaxy S26 users report 'Hey Plex' missing [U: Samsung statement]

Update 18/03/26 – 05:05 pm (IST): In a statement shared with Android Authority, Samsung said the change is part of its “ongoing product refinement process” and only affects the activation phrase and cross-app actions across select Samsung apps, not the overall availability, integration, or scope of the Perplexity experience on the Galaxy S26 series.

The company also said that any future feature updates will be communicated when available, which suggests Perplexity support itself is not being dropped from the Galaxy S26 lineup.

So while the disappearance of “Hey Plex” has clearly created confusion, Samsung appears to be framing this as a temporary refinement rather than a rollback of its Perplexity partnership. For now, it looks like the bigger issue is the wake phrase and related app actions, with Samsung still expected to keep Perplexity as one of the AI assistant options on the Galaxy S26 series, as noted by the publication.

Update 12/03/26 – 04:54 pm (IST): Samsung has quietly removed its press release page that mentioned the Hey Plex feature ahead of the Galaxy S26 series launch. The pages now return a “not found” error, which aligns with the fact that the feature is no longer available on these devices.

Original article published on March 11, 2026, follows:

After a recent software update, Galaxy S26 series users reported that ‘Hey Plex’ was missing on their phones. The wake-up command (or hot word) disappeared entirely, and the CEO of Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas, directly responded to the complaints. He confirmed that the team would change the wake-up phrase to ‘Hey Perplexity’ instead.

Samsung added Perplexity AI as a system-level assistant on Galaxy S26 devices. Earlier, you could enable the ‘Hey Plex detection’ toggle inside the preloaded Perplexity app. The feature would trigger an overlay screen for voice commands with the display off. If you don’t want to use the wakeup phrase, you can also trigger it by long-pressing the side button.

If you use the old hotword, ‘Hey Plex,’ the screen will no longer turn on, since this voice command will no longer launch the assistant. Hotwords for Bixby and Gemini, however, will continue to work for screen activation, and Samsung users enjoy multiple AI options.

Many people on Reddit shared their experience about it in recent days, writing about how the voice command no longer works. The CEO of Perplexity addressed it on X, as a reply to someone asking about the disappearance of the older wakeup command.

The exact reason for changing the name is unclear, but there’s a chance it’s to prevent trademark conflicts with Plex, the media streaming company. Users of the S26 series of phones now have to wait for another software update or app update to fix this issue. Integration of Perplexity on Samsung will continue to evolve, with developers planning to ship the updated wake option soon.

There are several bugs and issues that have been reported on Perplexity lately, and while the company didn’t respond to all of them, the CEO did mention that engineering-related billing issues would be solved today. There are various other issues, like the Pro plan automatically getting downgraded, which we have covered here.

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