As a student, she worked at various part-time jobs in the food-service industry, such as pizza parlors, pubs and sushi bars[3] with the intent of becoming a pre-school teacher.

"[1] Aoi appeared as a gravure idol in the June 2002 issue of Bejean[7] and then made her debut in adult videos (AV) in July 2002, with Happy Go Lucky!

[18][19] According to one reviewer of the June 2007 DVD release of the film: "The acting proves that Sora Aoi is no Dame Judi Dench but she is winsome enough to make you believe and care for her.

[24] The romantic comedy, released theatrically in Japan in January 2005, won the Grand Prize in the Off Theater Competition at the 2006 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival where it was screened in February 2005.

[25] Along with another AV idol, Akiho Yoshizawa, Aoi appeared in the late-night TV Tokyo manga-based production Jōō (嬢王) which aired in 12 episodes from October to December 2005.

[28] In another venue, Aoi was one of several AV actresses asked by a small Japanese publisher to take photographs of themselves as "if the [toy] cameras [were] their boyfriends or undetestable stalkers".

Aoi plays the character "Nozomi Ichimonji" in the manga-based series about a ronin student moving to Tokyo and sharing a house with several beautiful women.

[31] She was also cast in the TV Asahi midnight drama Kaikan shokunin (快感職人) which aired from July to September 2006, and in late 2007 she was a guest star on the popular J-dorama detective show Galileo (ガリレオ).

[33] One of her S1 videos, Hyper Risky Mosaic – Special Bath House Tsubaki, with 11 other S1 actresses won the First Place Award at the 2007 AV Open contest.

[39] Aoi traveled to Thailand for a part in a mainstream Thai teen movie, Hormones (Pid Term Yai, Hua Jai Waa Wun), released in March 2008.

Hormones won the Jury's Special Prize at the fourth Asian Marine Film Festival in Japan which journalist Wise Kwai ascribed to Aoi's presence.

[45] In late April 2010, Aoi's Twitter account was discovered by many Chinese netizens, despite the social networking site's typically being inaccessible in China.

[51] Her sizable following in China has also led to her debut as a singer in Mandarin Chinese with the song "mao yi" (毛衣 or Sweater) which was released digitally for mobile phone and computer download.

[54] Aoi said that working in Indonesia gave her pause but she wanted to expand her mainstream career and that she was "really looking forward to coming into contact with foreigners and engaging in communication.

[51][58] In May 2013, a "culture war" ensued when a work of calligraphy created by Aoi as a guest promoting a theme park in Ningbo, China in April 2013 was reportedly auctioned for $95,000.

A government-backed newspaper called the calligraphy "childish", her fans supported her, and many considered the auction simply a publicity stunt by the theme park.

In December 2022, Sola Aoi collaborated with a Malaysian rapper, singer, songwriter, filmmaker and actor Namewee as the main female lead in a music video, "Someone Else's Wife" (Chinese: 別人的老婆).