The NOT operator is a fundamental part of SQL's logical operations. It's used to filter data based on the opposite of a specified condition. For instance, if you want to find all customers who haven't placed any orders, you'd use NOT in conjunction with a condition checking for the existence of orders. This operator is crucial for creating complex queries that need to select records that don't meet certain criteria. It's often used in conjunction with comparison operators like =, >, <, >=, <=, and !=, as well as with logical operators like AND and OR. Understanding NOT allows for more nuanced and targeted data retrieval.