Artificial Intelligence (AI): Foundations, trends and future directions

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) technology have revolutionized many areas, from health to education, and from defense to commercial applications, both civilian and military. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations, theoretical, and technological developments of AI, and the application areas it has enabled. It also examines the industrial impact of AI, including recent trending applications such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Google Lens, Face ID, and Tesla, as well as the areas of Natural Language Processing, Autonomous Vehicles, and Computer Vision. Beyond these, it highlights on future aspects of AI, such as next-generation Large Language Models (LLMs) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and explores its impact on social ethics. The investigation of all these aspects aims to equip the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the current impact and potential future directions of AI. • Explore overview of foundations, theoretical and technological developments of AI. • Present building blocks of AI and key milestones in the History of AI. • Offer the hierarchical relationship of AI, ML, and DL. • Highlight next-generation AI solutions highlighting technological advancements. • Spotlight trend branches of AI and identify research directions and emerging trends.