Autoscaling in Kubernetes allows applications to automatically scale resources up or down based on metrics like CPU usage. It addresses challenges with traditional autoscaling approaches by being platform independent and scaling pods quickly using the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. The document outlines an architecture that sets autoscaling to increase application pods when CPU usage crosses 50%, with a minimum of 1 and maximum of 3 pods. It then demonstrates this through scenarios of idle and heavy loads, ramping up users over 10 seconds to test the autoscaling capabilities.