JSON is a lightweight data interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write and for machines to parse and generate. It is built on two structures: a collection of name/value pairs and an ordered list of values. JSON can be used to encode data for storage and transport in web applications, including as a replacement for XML in AJAX calls. PHP provides json_encode() and json_decode() functions to convert between JSON and PHP values, making it easy to work with JSON data in PHP applications and web services.