What is the role and purpose of the Intent object in Android development?

The Intent object in Android is used to describe an intention to perform a certain action. It is used to launch application components such as Activity, Service, or BroadcastReceiver, as well as to pass data between them. An Intent can be explicit (specifying a particular component) or implicit (describing an action to be handled by any suitable component).

Example of using an explicit Intent to start another Activity:

Intent intent = new Intent(CurrentActivity.this, TargetActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("key", "value");
startActivity(intent);

Thus, an Intent is a key mechanism for communication and navigation within an Android application.