Hybrid nanofluids are better heat transfer fluids than conventional nanofluids because of the combined properties of two or more nanoparticles. In this study, the thermal conductivity of Al 2 O 3-ZnO nanoparticles suspended in a base fluid of distilled water is investigated. The experiments were conducted for three mixture ratios (1:2, 1:1 and 2:1) of Al 2 O 3-ZnO nanofluid at five different volume concentrations of 0.33%, 0.67%, 1.0%, 1.33% and 1.67%. X-ray diffractometric analysis, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterise the nanoparticles. The highest thermal conductivity enhancement achieved for Al 2 O 3-ZnO hybrid nanofluids with 1:2, 1:1 and 2:1 (Al 2 O 3 :ZnO) mixture ratios was 36%, 35% and 40%, respectively, at volume concentration 1.67%. The study observed the highest thermal conductivity for Al 2 O 3-ZnO nanofluid was achieved at a mixture ratio of 2:1. A "deeping" effect was observed at a mixture ratio of 1:1 representing the lowest value of thermal conductivity within the considered range. The study proposed and compared three models for obtaining the thermal conductivity of Al 2 O 3-ZnO nanofluids based on temperature, volume concentration and nanoparticle mixture ratio. A polynomial correlation model, the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system model and an artificial neural network model optimised with three different learning algorithms. The adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system model was most accurate in forecasting the thermal conductivity of the Al 2 O 3-ZnO hybrid nanofluid with an R 2 value of 0.9946.