This paper studies a high-performance intelligent online adaptive robust saturated dynamic surface control framework for underactuated autonomous underwater vehicles by engaging Actor–Critic neural networks in the presence of unmodeled dynamics, uncertainties, ocean disturbances and actuator saturation. The proposed controller is designed based on reinforcement learning method to compensate the effects of unmodeled dynamics and uncertainties more accurately that can lead to a better performance for the controller. The Actor–Critic neural networks are trained real-time by designing online training laws creatively and a new critic function is proposed to supervise the closed-loop performance with the aid of the Critic neural network. The proposed structure for the reinforcement learning method benefits from a model-free algorithm and only relies on the measurable variables of the closed-loop control system. This independency from system dynamics results in considerable low computational burden for the controller and, hence, the proposed control algorithm is efficient computationally. The hyperbolic tangent function is ingeniously used as a saturated stabilizer term to bound the control signals that results in low-amplitude control action and the probability of actuator saturation phenomenon is minimized by learning and compensating the actuator saturation nonlinearity as well. Finally, the stability of the proposed closed-loop system is investigated by the Lyapunov’s direct methodology and simulations along a comparative study with some quantitative assessments certify the contributions of this paper.