The big winners over the rest of this year are the streaming companies. With everyone cooped up at home, we’re going to have a lot of time on our hands to get through our ‘to watch’ lists. But have you ever wondered how the algorithms on these services work?

When we look for a film to watch on Netflix or Stan, we are not presented with an open list of all the films and TV shows available. Instead, we see a curated set of recommendations. These recommendations are built from an algorithm called the recommendation engine. This engine combines our previous choices with the choices of people like us, to create a shortcut to our own personal pleasure.

What is the impact of this? Are we missing out when the engine makes decisions on our behalf? Or is hyper-personalisation the way to go?