Air pollution poses a significant threat to urban environments, and accurate prediction of multiple air pollutants is crucial for effective mitigation strategies. This study introduces a novel time-aware auto-regressive long-short-term memory (TAR LSTM) approach to address this challenge by developing a multivariate prediction model using artificial intelligence (AI) for SMART city applications. Existing models often fall short of predicting all six major criteria pollutants comprehensively. In response, this work proposes an autoregressive (AR) neural network model based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) architecture, which excels in capturing temporal dependencies within sequential data. The proposed method uses the AR model that captures the linear dependencies in the time series, while the LSTM captures the nonlinear dependencies and long-term patterns. This enables the model to consider past pollutant concentrations and their relationships, resulting in a more accurate and dynamic prediction. Rigorous testing on datasets from low-cost air quality sensors (LAQSs) validates the model's superior performance. Datasets from diverse locations, including India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, contribute to the robustness of the model, showcasing its efficacy in varied urban environments. This research contributes to advancing predictive modeling for air quality, addressing the limitations of previous approaches, and providing a promising solution for SMART city implementations. The findings highlight the AR LSTM model's potential as a valuable tool for precise and comprehensive air pollution forecasting, which has implications for informed decision making and better urban environmental management.