Systems and methods for providing real-time animation of artificial intelligence (AI) characters are provided. An example method includes determining a context of an interaction between an AI character and a user, where the AI character is generated by an AI character model for interacting with users in a virtual environment; receiving a plurality of gestures associated with the AI character model; selecting, based on the context, a gesture from the plurality of gestures; and causing the AI character model to animate the AI character to perform the selected gesture.