Systems and methods for continuously updating emotional states of artificial intelligence (AI) characters using emotional state models are provided. An example method includes providing an emotional state model trained to predict an emotional state of an AI character generated by an AI character model in a virtual environment; continuously monitoring a context of an interaction involving the AI character; generating, based on the context, an input for the emotional state model; providing the input to the emotional state model; obtaining, from the emotional state model, the emotional state of the AI character based on the input; and adjusting, based on the emotional state, parameters of the AI character model, thereby causing the AI character to act according to the emotional state.