BlackBerry has offered a first look at one of the features you can expect with the forthcoming BlackBerry 10.3 launch: a voice-controlled “assistant.”

Revealed today on the company’s blog, BlackBerry Assistant, which will be built into the BlackBerry Passport, is the company's answer to Siri on iOS and Cortana on Windows. Assistant’s capabilities include reading email, changing notification settings, setting reminders, and typing commands in the app. According to BlackBerry, as you use Assistant, it adapts to your needs and becomes more accurate with query results.

For now, it seems there are no features that will make Assistant stand out in a market where BlackBerry’s presence seems to be on an incessant downward spiral. But there are supposedly “a number of fun Easter eggs” built into Assistant…so, you know, there’s that.

“If I’m driving and I ask it to read my latest email message to me, it does so. I can then ask it to “Mark Unread” without having to enter the BlackBerry Hub. If I’m in a meeting and I type “Remind me to follow up with Matt about our whiteboard session,” it builds me a reminder note that I can save without leaving the Assistant”
Donny Halliwell, social media marketing lead at BlackBerry, wrote in a company blog post

 The move from BlackBerry looks like another attempt to compete with other smartphone makers. Virtual assistant has become an integral part of the smartphone ecosystem. Apple launched its digital voice assistant Siri soon after which Google came up with Google Now and the latest entry by Windows Phone is Cortana.