An air conditioner has an air circulation fan that take in room air and blows it back out to the room without cooling it.
When you turn the AC to "cool" it growls as the refrigerant cycle kicks in.
The cycle has four main components. First there is a compressor that compresses the refrigerant vapors into a hot compressed vapor.
The hot vapor which is well above outside air temperature (feel the back of an AC) enters a condenser which is a collection of finned tubes to increase effective surface area and gives up its heat (to the even less hot outdoor air!). This condenses the vapor into liquid refrigerant.
The liquid refrigerant passes through an expansion device (often a coil of tubing) and expands back to a low pressure liquid and vapor that can pick up heat from the circulating warm room air which evaporates into a vapor in a second finned heat exchanger, ready to repeat the cycle again at the coompressor suction.
So we have compressor -> condenser -> expansion tube -> room heat exchanger -> back to compressor, etc.
The room-air heat exchanger often condenses excess moisture from the room air and this can be directed to the condenser surface which evaporates it and helps the outside hot air cool the condenser's even hotter vapors.
When there is too much room moisture or it is very humid outside, the AC's often drip the excess condensate out a drain tube located outside at the bottom of the unit.