Investigating the hidden moat behind all the LLM apps | Simian Words

Investigating the hidden moat behind all the LLM apps

26 May, 2026

No one knows this but different LLM apps are allowed to access different kind of real time data sources.

The obvious ones are obvious: Grok allows you to search through Tweets and ground answers based on them. This is a real moat because X doesn't allow other companies to query Tweets real time.

I find this interesting because what data sources are allowed from which LLM application also adds a lot to the utility.

TL;DR<br>I'm summarising what I learned from a quick analysis.

Claude can't access Reddit for some reason. But Grok, ChatGPT and Gemini can!

Gemini and Claude can access Google maps, which makes sense because Google invests in Anthropic. ChatGPT and Grok can't access it directly.

Gemini can't access granular data like Youtube comments, and Google Maps reviews which is sad because this is the exact thing a power user like me would appreciate.

Only Grok can access real time Tweets. All others use hacks to achieve something similar.

Now I show how each data source works with each application:

Reddit<br>Reddit at least used to be a good source of believable anecdotes and a fair representation of what actual people believe. It is still genuinely useful.

ChatGPT<br>ChatGPT has no problem searching through Reddit threads.

Claude<br>Surprisingly Claude doesn't have access to Reddit posts and comments. This is a serious limitation in Claude and one of the reasons I don't use it that much.

Gemini<br>Gemini seems to struggle a bit but when you give a strict prompt, it does return some reddit posts

Grok also seems to have access to Reddit.

Twitter<br>Grok<br>Grok obviously has no problem finding tweets in real time

ChatGPT<br>ChatGPT cheats by using Nitter and TWStalker.

Claude<br>Claude also struggles

Youtube<br>Gemini<br>Gemini has the best first party access to Youtube - I can ask it to summarise videos

Surprisingly Gemini doesn't have access to the comments in the video. Strange!

Claude<br>Claude can't read Youtube transcripts either.

I also tested ChatGPT and Grok - they can't do it either.

Google Maps Data<br>Gemini<br>Gemini has a good connection to restaurants and other maps data.

Surprisingly it still can't access the review data and other useful granular data sources.

Claude<br>Claude also has connection to Google maps data

Grok and ChatGPT don't have direct access but use other hacky ways that are not pleasant.

Conclusion<br>Its interesting to see how these apps differentiate themselves not only through model intelligence but also access to real time data.