Ephemeral content digests for assistant systems

1. A method comprising, by one or more computing systems:

receiving, by an assistant xbot associated with the one or more computing systems, a user input in a first modality, wherein the first modality is an audio modality;

analyzing, by a natural-language understanding module, the user input in the first modality to determine the user input comprises a request for a content digest;

retrieving one or more content objects corresponding to the request for the content digest;

determining, for each of the retrieved content objects, a representative image of the respective content object;

generating, for each of the retrieved content objects, a summary of the respective content object based on content of the respective content object;

generating one or more slides for the one or more retrieved content objects, respectively, wherein each slide comprises (1) the representative image of the respective content object and (2) the summary of the respective content object;

providing, by the assistant xbot, instructions for presenting the content digest in a second modality responsive to the request for the content digest from the user input in the first modality, wherein the second modality is a visual modality, wherein the content digest comprises the one or more slides, and wherein one or more of the slides of the content digest are removed from the content digest after a predetermined time period;

determining, for each retrieved content object, a category for the retrieved content object from a plurality of categories; and

selecting one or more of the retrieved content objects to incorporate into the content digest based on their respective categories,

wherein the representative image for each of the selected content objects is based on the content of the selected content object and the category of the selected content object.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more retrieved content objects are accessible by the user via an online social network.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of categories are associated with a plurality of category-images, respectively.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the representative image for the selected content object is determined from either the category-image associated with the category of the selected content object or an image associated with the content of the selected content object.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

ranking the selected content objects based on their respective representative images.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the one or more of the retrieved content objects to incorporate into the content digest further comprises:

ranking the retrieved content objects based on one or more features associated with the respective content object; and

selecting the one or more retrieved content objects based on their respective rankings.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the one or more features associated with the respective content object comprises one or more of:

social signals associated with the content object;

an affinity-coefficient of the user with respect to the content object;

a relevance of the content object to the user; or

an ephemerality of the content object.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein selecting the one or more of the retrieved content objects to incorporate into the content digest further comprises:

selecting up to a threshold number of content objects to incorporate into the content digest.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the representative image for the selected content object is an avatar representing a sentiment associated with the selected content object.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more slides are automatically generated at a predetermined time period.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining, for each retrieved content object, whether the content object is accessible by the user based on a privacy setting associated with the content object.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising ordering the one or more slides of the content digest based on one or more features associated with the respective slides.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the one or more features associated with the respective slides comprises one or more of: social signals associated with the content object corresponding to the slide; an affinity-coefficient of the user with respect to the content object corresponding to the slide; a relevance of the content object corresponding to the slide to the user; or a chronological relevance of the content object corresponding to the slide.

14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

receiving an indication of a gesture within a first slide of the one or more slides; and

providing instructions for presenting information associated with the selected content object associated with the first slide responsive to the gesture.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the information associated with the selected content object comprises an activatable link that is activatable to perform a context switch to the selected content object.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein the information associated with the selected content object is presented on a second slide.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more slides comprise an introductory slide that comprises information associated with a geographic location of the user.

18. One or more computer-readable non-transitory non-volatile storage media embodying software that is operable when executed to:

receive, by an assistant xbot, a user input in a first modality, wherein the first modality is an audio modality;

analyze, by a natural-language understanding module, the user input in the first modality to determine the user input comprises a request for a content digest;

retrieve one or more content objects corresponding to the request for the content digest;

determine, for each of the retrieved content objects, a representative image of the respective content object;

generate, for each of the retrieved content objects, a summary of the respective content object based on content of the respective content object;

generate one or more slides for the one or more retrieved content objects, respectively, wherein each slide comprises (1) the representative image of the respective content object and (2) the summary of the respective content object;

provide, by the assistant xbot, instructions for presenting the content digest in a second modality responsive to the request for the content digest from the user input in the first modality, wherein the second modality is a visual modality, wherein the content digest comprises the one or more slides, and wherein one or more of the slides of the content digest are removed from the content digest after a predetermined time period;

determine, for each retrieved content object, a category for the retrieved content object from a plurality of categories; and

select one or more of the retrieved content objects to incorporate into the content digest based on their respective categories,

wherein the representative image for each of the selected content objects is based on the content of the selected content object and the category of the selected content object.

19. A system comprising: one or more processors; and a non-transitory non-volatile memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to:

receive, by an assistant xbot, a user input in a first modality, wherein the first modality is an audio modality;

analyze, by a natural-language understanding module, the user input in the first modality to determine the user input comprises a request for a content digest;

retrieve one or more content objects corresponding to the request for the content digest;

determine, for each of the retrieved content objects, a representative image of the respective content object;

generate, for each of the retrieved content objects, a summary of the respective content object based on content of the respective content object;

generate one or more slides for the one or more retrieved content objects, respectively, wherein each slide comprises (1) the representative image of the respective content object and (2) the summary of the respective content object;

provide, by the assistant xbot, instructions for presenting the content digest in a second modality responsive to the request for the content digest from the user input in the first modality, wherein the second modality is a visual modality, wherein the content digest comprises the one or more slides, and wherein one or more of the slides of the content digest are removed from the content digest after a predetermined time period;

determine, for each retrieved content object, a category for the retrieved content object from a plurality of categories; and

select one or more of the retrieved content objects to incorporate into the content digest based on their respective categories,

wherein the representative image for each of the selected content objects is based on the content of the selected content object and the category of the selected content object.