diff --git a/src/integrations/chat_bridge/vendors/discord.py b/src/integrations/chat_bridge/vendors/discord.py
index 6dfcea5..9abf4d2 100644
--- a/src/integrations/chat_bridge/vendors/discord.py
+++ b/src/integrations/chat_bridge/vendors/discord.py
@@ -547,9 +547,7 @@ class DiscordVendor(ChatPlatform):
             response = "Sorry, that took too long. Please try a simpler request."
         except Exception as exc:
             logger.error("Discord: chat_with_tools() failed: %s", exc)
-            response = (
-                "I'm having trouble reaching my language model right now. Please try again shortly."
-            )
+            response = "I'm having trouble reaching my inference backend right now. Please try again shortly."
 
         # Check if Agno paused the run for tool confirmation
         if run_output is not None:
diff --git a/src/timmy/session.py b/src/timmy/session.py
index e5d2c74..39577e1 100644
--- a/src/timmy/session.py
+++ b/src/timmy/session.py
@@ -101,7 +101,9 @@ async def chat(message: str, session_id: str | None = None) -> str:
         logger.error("Session: agent.arun() failed: %s", exc)
         session_logger.record_error(str(exc), context="chat")
         session_logger.flush()
-        return "I'm having trouble reaching my language model right now. Please try again shortly."
+        return (
+            "I'm having trouble reaching my inference backend right now. Please try again shortly."
+        )
 
     # Post-processing: clean up any leaked tool calls or chain-of-thought
     response_text = _clean_response(response_text)
@@ -175,7 +177,7 @@ async def chat_with_tools(message: str, session_id: str | None = None):
         session_logger.flush()
         # Return a duck-typed object that callers can handle uniformly
         return _ErrorRunOutput(
-            "I'm having trouble reaching my language model right now. Please try again shortly."
+            "I'm having trouble reaching my inference backend right now. Please try again shortly."
         )
 
 
diff --git a/tests/timmy/test_ollama_disconnect.py b/tests/timmy/test_ollama_disconnect.py
index 0ff3bdd..ba1afb3 100644
--- a/tests/timmy/test_ollama_disconnect.py
+++ b/tests/timmy/test_ollama_disconnect.py
@@ -310,6 +310,6 @@ class TestSessionDisconnect:
 
             result = await session.chat("test message")
 
-            assert "I'm having trouble reaching my language model" in result
+            assert "I'm having trouble reaching my inference backend" in result
             # Should NOT have Ollama disconnected message
             assert "Ollama appears to be disconnected" not in result