What is the role of Ajax in dynamically updating data based on user selections in PHP?

Ajax plays a crucial role in dynamically updating data based on user selections in PHP by allowing asynchronous communication between the client-side and server-side. This means that when a user makes a selection, Ajax can send a request to the server to fetch updated data without requiring a full page reload. This results in a more seamless and responsive user experience.

```php
// HTML code with a dropdown menu that triggers an Ajax request on change
<select id="dropdown">
  <option value="1">Option 1</option>
  <option value="2">Option 2</option>
</select>

<div id="result"></div>

<script>
document.getElementById('dropdown').addEventListener('change', function() {
  var selectedValue = this.value;
  
  var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
  xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
      document.getElementById('result').innerHTML = this.responseText;
    }
  };
  xhr.open('GET', 'update_data.php?selected=' + selectedValue, true);
  xhr.send();
});
</script>
```

In the above code snippet, we have a dropdown menu with two options. When a user selects an option, an Ajax request is sent to the server (update_data.php) with the selected value. The server-side script can then process this request, fetch updated data based on the selection, and send a response back to the client-side JavaScript to update the displayed result. This allows the data to be dynamically updated based on user selections without requiring a full page reload.