Generators in ECMAScript provide a way to write iterator functions using the yield keyword. This allows for writing functions that can be iterated over manually or used to create infinite streams. Generators also enable asynchronous programming using coroutines instead of callbacks. They allow for cooperative multitasking by starting multiple generator functions as "threads" that yield values in a nondeterministic order. Array comprehensions are also proposed as a shorthand for transforming arrays using generators.