The Abstract Factory pattern provides an interface for creating families of related or dependent objects without specifying their concrete classes. It encapsulates knowledge about which concrete classes a system uses and hides how they are created and assembled. The pattern is applicable when a system needs to be independent of how product objects are created, created product families can be used independently, and products within a family are usually used together. Common implementations of the pattern include the Factory Method, Prototype, and Builder patterns. The classic Abstract Factory pattern isolates concrete classes but makes exchanging product families and enforcing consistency among products more difficult. Variations like pluggable and extensible factories aim to address these issues but also have tradeoffs around complexity and type safety.