One of Samsung Galaxy S26's new features requires a new wake word – here's why you'll be saying "Hey, Plex!"

Samsung has announced that it's going to offer direct access to another AI service, with the integration of Perplexity. That will allow Samsung users to say "Hey Plex" to trigger another voice assistant.

The justification for the move – announced via a press release ahead of this week's Unpacked – is to offer a "multi-agent ecosystem", because according to Samsung, "people are increasingly using multiple AI agents depending on the task".

This comes from Samsung own internal research, so there's no way to determine exactly who was asked and what the question was.

The inclusion of Perplexity will be an expansion of Galaxy AI, the system of AI features that Samsung is developing through its phones and other devices. Adding Perplexity means more choice, so if that's your AI agent of choice then you're going to well served.

Samsung goes on to say that the aim is to have Galaxy AI "curate experiences" from diverse services. As it stands, it's likely that Samsung device owners will have the choice of saying "Hey Google", "Hey Plex" and "Hey Bixby".

What will Perplexity offer on Samsung Galaxy S26 phones?

Perplexity will be deeply integrated into Samsung's apps such as Notes, Clock, Gallery, Reminder and the Calendar. This sounds a lot like the experience of Galaxy AI, where features like the writing assistant only work with Samsung's keyboard – and not with the popular GBoard from Google, for example.

While choice is great, there's a chance that this could lead to confusion. Samsung's not the first to offer multiple agents – that's something that's already in Moto AI – but the Motorola experience feels a bit disjointed, with Gemini usually offering a better universal option.

While the justification for the move from Samsung is given as creating a multi-agent experience, the move looks like the firm is ensuring that's it's not too dependent on one provider. We've seen this before, with Tizen developed as an alternative to Android software in the early days, the use of Exynos rather than Qualcomm, and so on.

Adding Perplexity removes the dependency on Gemini and gives Samsung the chance to create something that's unique – a brand experience that it can own. However, with Gemini accelerating at a great pace, there's every chance that users will choose Google over Galaxy AI.

The new Perplexity skills are expected to be available in One UI 8.5.