Artificial Intelligence has made significant strides in recent years, yet it remains largely narrow in scope, excelling at specialized tasks but lacking true adaptability and reasoning. Cognitive AI presents a paradigm shift—moving beyond pattern recognition to systems capable of understanding, reasoning, learning, and adapting much like human cognition. This talk explores how Cognitive AI serves as a stepping stone toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and what breakthroughs are required to achieve it. We will examine the fusion of deep learning, neuroscience-inspired architectures, symbolic reasoning, and self-supervised learning to create more robust, adaptable AI systems. Attendees will gain insights into the real-world applications of Cognitive AI, its ethical implications, and the challenges that must be overcome before AI can truly think and learn like humans.