The research used an artificial neural network (ANN) model to examine the rheological properties of hybrid non-Newtonian ferrofluids (HNFFs) composed of Fe-CuO, water, and ethylene glycol. The performance of neural network was optimized using seven regression methods (RMs), namely Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH), Decision Tree (D-Tree), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), Radial Basis Function (RBF), and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). The findings highlighted GMDH method's superior performance when compared to neural networks. R and RMSE values attained by GMDH for the objective function (OF) μnf were 0.99436 and 2.0135, respectively. For the torque function OF, the values were 0.97652 and 4.8952. Margin of difference (MOD) calculations across various algorithms, such as MLP, SVM, RBF, D-Tree, ELM, MLR, and GMDH-Algos revealed significant disparities, indicating GMDH's efficacy. Comparison of R, RMSD, and standard deviation values between GMDH and MLR algorithms further underscored performance discrepancies. Specific parameters for which NSGA II Algo was rated highest among evaluation indices were as follows: a crossover rate of 0.7, a mutation rate of 0.02, a population size of 50, and 500 generations. Post-optimization, optimal values for μnf and torque (To) were determined as 6.595 and 3.543, respectively, with corresponding values for φ, T, and γ obtained as 0.185, 49.372, and 3.163, respectively. This comprehensive analysis sheds light on the effectiveness of various regression methods in modeling the rheological behavior of hybrid non-Newtonian ferrofluids, contributing to advancements in fluid dynamics research.