Promises in JavaScript are objects that represent the eventual completion (or failure) of an asynchronous operation and its resulting value. They allow you to handle asynchronous code more easily by providing methods like `.then()` for success and `.catch()` for errors.
`async` and `await` are syntactic sugar built on top of promises. An `async` function always returns a promise, and within an `async` function, you can use `await` to pause execution until a promise is resolved, making the code easier to read and write as if it were synchronous.