The DJI drone everyone’s been waiting for gets a launch date

The first teaser was pure mystery. DJI released a short clip showing a drone flying aggressive first-person FPV lines through cityscapes. The footage was wild: fireworks exploding against the night sky, smooth dives and sweeping camera moves, and then a surreal “tiny planet” shot where the entire world wrapped around the camera.

For anyone familiar with drone video, one thing immediately stood out. Those visuals are almost impossible to create unless the camera is capturing everything around the drone at once.

At the time, DJI didn’t name a product. But the footage looked exactly like something shot with a 360-degree camera mounted on an FPV drone, which quickly triggered speculation across the drone community.

Now, DJI has followed up with a second teaser — and this time, the company isn’t hiding anything. The drone behind all the speculation is officially called the Avata 360, and DJI plans to unveil it on March 26. The teaser even describes it as an “8K flagship 360° drone,” making it clear that DJI is about to enter the world of immersive aerial capture for the first time.

And that’s exactly why the teaser has everyone asking the same question: Is DJI about to dominate the 360-degree drone space the way it dominates regular drones?

For longtime DJI watchers, however, the Avata 360 hasn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Rumors surrounding the drone have been circulating for months, and last year, the aircraft quietly cleared an important hurdle. In November 2025, regulatory filings showed that the Avata 360 had completed testing and certification with the US Federal Communications Commission, effectively giving DJI the green light to sell the drone in the United States.

The timing of that approval was significant. With political pressure and potential restrictions hanging over DJI products in the US, getting the aircraft through the FCC certification process meant the company managed to push one more major drone through the pipeline before any possible import complications.

But the bigger story is what the Avata 360 is trying to do technically.

For the first time, DJI appears to be merging true 360-degree spherical video capture with high-speed FPV flight in a single aircraft. In simple terms, it’s a concept that blends the immersive video style of 360 cameras with the agile flying characteristics of DJI’s cinewhoop drones.

Think of it as something like a traditional FPV drone and a 360 action camera fused together, but built with DJI’s flight systems, stabilization technology, and transmission infrastructure. That idea alone is why the Avata 360 has already become one of the most talked-about rumored DJI releases in years.

The Avata lineup itself has played a major role in making FPV flying accessible to mainstream drone pilots. The original Avata simplified the experience of flying in first-person view, while its successor, the DJI Avata 2, pushed things further by allowing beginners to perform dramatic aerial maneuvers such as flips, rolls, and controlled drifts with minimal training.

The Avata 360, however, appears to be aiming at something bigger than flight performance alone. If leaks circulating online prove accurate, the drone could feature a dual-lens camera system capable of recording native 8K spherical video, capturing the entire environment around the aircraft while it flies. Some reports also suggest the camera module may be able to rotate into a forward-facing FPV mode, allowing pilots to switch between immersive 360 capture and a more traditional drone camera view.

For creators, that kind of flexibility could unlock entirely new styles of storytelling. Instead of worrying about framing during flight, pilots could capture everything and choose the best angle later in editing… whether that’s a sweeping cinematic reveal, a dynamic chase shot, or even a VR-ready immersive sequence.

And that’s exactly why DJI’s teaser is generating so much excitement. Because if the Avata 360 delivers on what the footage suggests, it won’t just be another drone launch. It could be the moment when 360-degree aerial filmmaking finally goes mainstream.

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