Samsung is leaning into its AI phone mantra by adding a third integrated assistant to its new Galaxy S26 series, with Perplexity joining Gemini and Bixby as part of its AI OS initiative – and it sounds like it won’t be the last such assistant to join Samsung’s AI roster.
Launching first on S26 phones in the US and South Korea, this alternative AI assistant can be activated by saying “Hey Plex,” or set as the default AI when you long press your S26’s wake button, and can then perform many of the actions Gemini can currently help you with.
It can retrieve information from connected apps like your calendar and gallery, with a level of access reserved for integrated assistants – although it can also perform more basic tasks, such as searching the web for answers to your queries.
This will give Perplexity a higher level of integration with your device compared to a smartphone app, but if you’d rather just stick with Gemini, you can do that – remember this is similar to how you can choose which search engine you want to be the default on your phone.
With Samsung saying eight out of 10 users already juggle multiple AI assistants every day, it’s about giving us the choice to use the tools we like best.
This then raises the question: which artificial assistant will be integrated next? Since it’s not much of a choice if you only have two options (three counting Bixby).
Samsung was, as you’d expect, cagey about this, but Kang admitted that “there’s an opportunity for another partner to join the ecosystem” at some point in the future — and I’d be surprised if Perplexity and Gemini remain a double act for long.
As we talked about in our special Samsung Unpacked edition of the TechRadar Podcast, there are so many interesting possibilities for AI on the device. Defaults like Claude or ChatGPT are certainly handy, especially for people with a history with those services already, which could help advance AI’s usability on their device, but imagine if something like a vibe-coding capable assistant was given the reins over your smartphone and could help generate new apps to suit your needs on the fly.
This is just speculation for now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is something we’ll see in a few generations time, especially as on-device NPU capabilities improve.
Speaking of hardware features, Samsung explained that its new AI features — including Perplexity — will be rolled out (or not, as the case may be) to older models on a case-by-case basis.
So we might see Perplexity on the Galaxy S25 smartphones or the Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7, but Samsung has yet to confirm this and perhaps this software upgrade is one you will eventually have to upgrade to. Although Kand explained that Samsung wants AI features to reach as many people as possible – so it will be interesting to see what the upcoming One UI updates bring.
Google still number one?
While he was clearly excited about the arrival of Perplexity and the potential for additional AI assistant on Samsung devices, Kang confirmed that “Our main partner is Google” and explained that Gemini will get some new improvements (exact details were a bit vague, although this presumably includes features like the improved Circle to Search) to make it the most capable phone assistant.
This somewhat flies in the face of Samsung’s user choice comment, although it did make it clear that it’s up to the AI providers to get the most out of the device integration.
Given Google’s smartphone prowess, its Android OS, which is the platform One UI is built on, and its own Pixel lineup that provides insight into what users want most, it makes sense that its Assistant remains in first place for now.
That said, as we’re seeing with AI in other areas, while Gemini may remain the best multitasking assistant, Samsung’s ecosystem might allow users to use different tools for different tasks to get the best AI for each task rather than the uniform model we’re currently dealing with.
We’ll have to wait and see how its AI strategy develops, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other smartphone makers follow Samsung’s multi-model approach.
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