The concept of async/await is a way to handle asynchronous operations in programming, making it easier to write and read code. When you declare a function as async, it allows you to use the await keyword inside it. This means that the function can pause its execution until a promise is resolved, making it look like synchronous code while still being non-blocking. Using async/await simplifies error handling as well. Instead of using complex chains of then and catch, you can use a simple try/catch block. This makes your code cleaner and easier to understand, especially when dealing with multiple asynchronous tasks.