An invitation to an Apple event has long been something to brag about in the tech world. Now, for some influencers, it reportedly comes with business-class travel, a hotel stay, and time with the company's top executives.
On the Oct. 15 episode of Bloomberg's Power On podcast, Mark Gurman said he had confirmed that Apple offered influencers "paid hotel, paid business class travel" to attend its "Pro and Tell" product experience in Los Angeles, calling it a "creator-focused event." For the creators attending the upcoming Los Angeles showcase, Gurman described plans that include meetings with new Apple CEO John Ternus and other executives, plus dinner on Oct. 27, ahead of the company’s Oct. 28 special event.
This isn't the first time Apple has brought creators together for an exclusive experience. In March 2025, the company invited a group of student creators to Los Angeles for a one-day event that attendees nicknamed "Apple Campus" or "Apple University." For student and creator Heaven Marley, the invitation itself was a surprise. "I got the email and thought it was spam at first," she told People.
The company followed that with a similar creator gathering in Los Angeles this January. Creator Petr Mara shared an invitation to an "Apple Experience" running Jan. 27 to 29, coinciding with the launch of Apple Creator Studio, a subscription combining software for tasks such as editing video, making music, and working with images.
And, at the September iPhone event, livestreamer IShowSpeed performed a backflip while holding an iPhone Duo in front of Ternus. His video has more than 6 million views on YouTube as of Oct. 22. (Last year, MrBeast attended the event with former CEO Tim Cook.)
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Other tech companies already offer a similarly warm welcome to creators.
Bloomberg's Chris Welch also noted on the podcast episode that Samsung and Google cover travel and hotels and host dinners too, calling it "standard fare." Gurman agreed that Apple wasn’t doing anything outside its competitors' practices. What stood out to him, though, was the change from the days when an Apple invitation was enough:
"There was a time...people were begging to go," Gurman said. "It's not the other way around, typically."
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So what do companies get out of all this hospitality? Well, a chance to reach consumers through creators they already love. In a September analysis, Deloitte found that about 70 percent of U.S. consumers who engage with creators regularly return to the same ones; and roughly 60 percent said they had made a purchase primarily because of a creator's recommendation or sponsorship in the previous six months.
That appeal hasn’t gone unnoticed by the tech press. Discussing Apple's 2025 invitations on MacBreak Weekly, journalist Jason Snell argued that influencers can offer companies more control over their message, repeating promotional points "instead of questioning your points as a journalist might." And as tech reviewer Ben Sin wrote on X in March, "I completely understand why Apple is doing this," but described its "pivot to favoring giving access to lifestyle and overall influencers over techies" as "still sad news for me."
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Each brand has its own entry way into the creator economy. Take Samsung — Its "Team Galaxy” roster includes creators and other public figures, with model and creator Haley Baylee and musician Audrey Nuna joining this year. And for February’s Galaxy S26 launch, Samsung says it brought approximately 140 influencers from 35 countries to San Francisco for three days of product demos, content creation, and a closing celebration.
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As for AI companies, they face the unique challenge of trying to win over an often-skeptical public with plenty of questions about what AI means for jobs, creative work, and the environment. Influencers provide a layer of trust that they desperately need — which is probably why they are so sought-after right now.
"That’s the goal right now: build brand love," Anthropic's head of influencer, Lexie Barnhorn, told influencer marketing company Linqia. Claude recently hosted a supper club at Wild Cherry, the trendy restaurant inside New York's A24-owned Cherry Lane Theatre.
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Microsoft Copilot is trying to do the same. Last February, they brought a group of New York fashion influencers to the Super Bowl on an influencer brand trip, where they asked the AI platform questions like, "hey copilot how do you cure a hangover" and "how to get a stain out".
And in February, OpenAI sent a signal on their seriousness about influencer marketing when they hired former Instagram partnerships executive Charles Porch as its first vice president of global creative partnerships. By summer, the company was hosting creators at Wildflower Farms, a luxury resort in New York’s Hudson Valley, for a retreat featuring private cabins, monogrammed pajamas, and picturesque outdoor dinners. The company also hosted a ChatGPT influencer dinner in tandem with Brett Chody, which was held at Little Beach House Malibu, part of Soho House.
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"Creators are an important part of our community and how people get information and learn about our products today," an OpenAI spokesperson told Inc in August. "We value creators who choose to engage with us, attend our events, ask tough questions, and learn alongside everyone else."
As Mashable reported in August, OpenAI's nature-filled getaway to the Hudson Valley didn’t go over quite as planned. Beneath the lavish room tours and vacation posts, social media users questioned the setting and the creators' decision to attend.
"The concept of attending an AI brand trip surrounded by nature while it actively hurts the environment is an incredible bit," one X user wrote. On Reddit, a commenter asked whether one creator was "gazing at where the new data center is gonna go," while another asked, "Did they promise you fresh water when we run out?"
From a creator's perspective, though, there are many reasons to say yes to a brand event, trip, or collab, despite the criticism. Business creator Grace McCarrick defended the retreat as a chance to hear from the people shaping a technology likely to affect her work and her audience. "If I have the opportunity to be in the room and hear from people who are at the helm of change, I can do that," she said. "It's actually well within my moral system."
There's also a real financial incentive towards working with these brands: they have money to burn.
AI and career creator Megan Lieu, who attended the OpenAI retreat, told CNBC in February that her biggest sponsorship at that point was with Anthropic. She didn’t disclose its value, but said her sponsored deals generally ranged from $5,000 to $30,000.
Even so, some creators turn the offers down: Circus performer Jack Lepiarz, known as Jack the Whipper, told CNBC he had rejected a $20,000 deal promoting generative image tools over concerns about AI’s effect on people’s livelihoods.
That puts influencers in a complicated position. The relationship with their audience is part of what makes them valuable to a company; yet, accepting the partnership can put that same relationship under scrutiny.
But for tech brands, the decision is less complicated, with lots of potential benefits and few downsides. Influencers bring an audience with them; journalists bring questions they might not want to answer.
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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.