Disney was granted a new patent on August 25, 2026, for a technology it calls "Memories for Virtual Characters" — a system designed to make AI-driven characters more consistent, believable, and true to their established personalities. The patent, US-12718481-B2, was originally filed on May 22, 2024.
The core problem the technology addresses is what's known in AI circles as "hallucination" — when a large language model generates responses that are factually wrong or wildly out of character. Traditional theme park and entertainment interactions have relied on rigid, scripted dialogue trees, which keep characters consistent but limit spontaneity. More recent AI-powered systems are more natural-sounding, but without a grounded sense of who a character is, they can go off the rails.
Disney's proposed solution works by matching a user's message to a relevant set of memories associated with a specific virtual character, then feeding those memories — along with character instructions — into a machine learning model to generate a response. Those memories would be sourced from materials like scripts, character descriptions, storyboards, books, graphic novels, and even past conversations. Interestingly, the patent also describes a built-in "forgetting" formula, where memories fade over time based on how reliable the source is and how frequently a given memory is recalled.
The technology is envisioned for a wide range of applications, including chatbots, interactive robots, video games, and virtual reality experiences — making it relevant well beyond theme park meet-and-greets. Disney notes that this approach differs from existing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques, which focus more on factual knowledge than on personality and lived experience.
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This patent is one of several Disney has pursued recently in the AI and immersive technology space, alongside others covering ride preference personalization and projection mapping on smoke. Full details on the patent were first reported by WDW News Today.
