The BBC is developing a new version of the iPlayer that harnesses artificial intelligence, with the potential for your television to 'spy' on the household and tell who is in a room.

As part of the corporation's quest to "personalise" its services, it has joined forces with Microsoft to build an experimental version of iPlayer.

The prototype uses voice recognition technology, allowing users to talk to their television. When a user says, 'Show me something funny,' it presents a list of comedy programmes. It responds to the question, 'What's going on in the world?' by automatically playing the BBC News channel.