Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) rank among the leading global causes of mortality. Early detection and diagnosis are paramount in minimizing their impact. The application of ML and DL in classifying the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases holds significant potential for reducing diagnostic errors. This research endeavors to construct a model capable of accurately predicting cardiovascular diseases, thereby mitigating the fatality associated with CVD. In this paper, the authors introduce a novel approach that combines an artificial intelligence network (AIN)-based feature selection (FS) technique with cutting-edge DL and ML classifiers for the early detection of heart diseases based on patient medical histories. The proposed model is rigorously evaluated using two real-world datasets sourced from the University of California. The authors conduct extensive data preprocessing and analysis, and the findings from this study demonstrate that the proposed methodology surpasses the performance of existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving an exceptional accuracy rate of 99.99%. © 2023 IGI Global. All rights reserved.