In the last few years, cyberattacks have become more complex, and it is becoming increasingly necessary to establish secure networks. This study examines enhancements to intrusion detection systems (IDSs) with the implementation of machine learning for the categorization of network traffic attacks. For the current study, we utilize four publicly available datasets: CICIDS2017, CIC-DoS2017, CSE-CIC-IDS2018, and CIC-DDoS2019. We examined three machine learning techniques: LightGBM, Random Forest, and XGBoost. Experimental results showed that RandomForest and XGBoost achieved the highest accuracy of 0.99 in both binary and multi-class intrusion detection tasks, maintaining balanced performance with macro F1-scores around 0.86. LightGBM exhibited slightly lower overall performance, but benefited from ANOVA-based feature selection, which improved its recall and model stability. Feature selection also enhanced computational efficiency by reducing feature redundancy while preserving accuracy across models. These results highlight how AI tools could help network security deal with emerging threats and improve the performance of IDS. The study underscores the critical role of feature selection in enhancing model efficiency, hence promoting advancements in automated network security systems that can adapt to evolving cyber threats.