The wake word

Say "Hey Ari" — the default wake word — and Ari wakes up, hands-free. "Ok Ari" is also available if you'd rather use that instead, and "Hey Jarvis" ships as a fallback model.

Wake word detection happens on the device. Your phone is listening for that one phrase, locally — there's no always-on microphone feed going to the cloud, and nothing is sent anywhere until Ari has actually been woken up.

Hands-free and the lock screen

Ari can wake from the lock screen, so you don't need to unlock your phone first — just say the wake word and start talking.

"Let's talk" mode

Once you've started a conversation, "Let's talk" mode keeps it going: you can ask follow-up questions without repeating the wake word every time. If Ari is speaking and you want to jump in, barge-in lets you interrupt and say your next thing — no need to wait for it to finish.

Tips

• A quieter room makes wake word detection more reliable, though it's built to cope with everyday background noise.
• Not keen on the default? You can change the wake word at any time in Settings.