Azure Data Explorer (ADX) is a managed data analytics service designed for real-time analysis of extensive streaming data, and it can be effectively integrated into Apache Airflow workflows using the ADX Hook and Operator from the Azure provider package. The process involves configuring service principal authentication to allow Airflow to communicate with an ADX database, populating the database with sample data if needed, and setting up a new Astro project with the required Azure modules. After establishing a connection in Airflow to the ADX cluster, users can create a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) that includes an AzureDataExplorerQueryOperator to perform queries on the database. Once the DAG is executed, the query results are automatically stored in XComs within Airflow for review.