AJAX is a web development technique that uses JavaScript and XML to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging data with the server asynchronously in the background without reloading the entire page. It allows updating parts of a web page by retrieving data from the server and rendering it without disrupting the user experience. Some key technologies used in AJAX are XHTML, CSS, DOM, XML, and JavaScript. AJAX provides benefits like faster interactions and response times, real-time data validation, and reduced bandwidth usage compared to traditional page reloads.