<p>The field of <i>human-computer interaction</i> (HCI) is an emerging area of research and is significantly gaining importance among computer users. Besides other important research areas, <i>speech recognition</i> (SR) is an exciting area in the field of HCI that offers the ability to interact with machines and command technology to make life easier. Since the advent of <i>artificial intelligence</i> (AI) &amp; <i>machine learning</i> (ML) has revolutionized almost every sphere of life such as education, business, healthcare, etc. and field of <i>natural language processing</i> (NLP) is no exception. The field of NLP besides other important language-related activities, deals with manipulation of speech signals for various tasks such as language conversion, identification, etc. The recent advances in NLP powered by AI, ML &amp; <i>deep learning</i> (DL) have resulted in increasingly sophisticated <i>automatic speech recognition</i> (ASR) systems. However, owing to the significant importance of SR in contemporary HCI-related applications, there is a tremendous scope for further research in this area. The field of SR has accordingly garnered attention from academic and business communities over the period of time. The main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of ASR systems and the latest advancements taking place in this area. The paper further discusses various ASR techniques, applications, challenges, and its future scope. The information presented in this study will be of immense benefit to prospective researchers interested in ASR research. It will help them to gain more insight about the present status of ASR and pave the way for further research in this area.</p>