Horn & Company and Otera Enter Strategic Partnership to Advance Agentic AI
25.2.2026, Düsseldorf – Top management consultancy Horn & Company and agentic automation technology firm Otera have entered a strategic partnership. The collaboration aims to deliver and maximize measurable business value through the deployment of agentic AI from initial pilot applications to scalable, mission-critical end-to-end processes with clear governance and accountability.
“Otera was built to autonomously execute end-to-end processes not to automate isolated tasks,” said Stefan Engl, Co-Founder and CEO of Otera. “Our partnership with Horn & Company ensures that agent-based execution is embedded at the heart of enterprise transformation, supported by the governance infrastructure required to make autonomy sustainable, auditable, and trustworthy.”
Dr. Oliver Laitenberger, Managing Partner at Horn & Company, added: “From our perspective, agentic AI is a true game changer. It is not another point solution for selective automation, but an approach that makes technology an integral part of the business and fundamentally reshapes value creation. Access to AI technology is no longer the bottleneck. What matters is a transformation approach that delivers measurable AI impact and sustainable economic results.”
Agentic automation is widely regarded as the next evolutionary step beyond traditional automation and AI copilots. While those technologies primarily support individual tasks, agentic systems assume end-to-end responsibility for entire business processes, make decisions, and execute actions within defined governance frameworks. Although most large enterprises have launched AI or agentic pilot initiatives, industry estimates suggest that fewer than 15 percent have successfully scaled beyond departmental experiments.
The partners’ approach is particularly relevant for CEOs and executives in finance, IT, digital, and AI functions with clear performance accountability, as it delivers measurable operational results in a short timeframe. “Today’s executives face the challenge of positioning their organizations for long-term competitiveness,” Laitenberger said. “Agentic AI will be a central pillar of modern AI-first operating models.” He added, “We measure ourselves against tangible KPIs: shorter cycle times, lower costs, and higher quality—clear economic impact.”
The joint offering combines Horn & Company’s transformation and operating model expertise with Otera’s agentic automation platform, purpose-built for complex, regulated, and mission-critical environments. “True transformation is not driven by new tools, but by a fundamentally new operating model,” Engl explained. “Otera provides the agent-based foundation for the autonomous enterprise—enabling organizations to independently sense, decide, and act with measurable impact at scale. Together with Horn & Company, we are translating this new target operating model into business reality.”
Otera’s platform operates on top of existing IT landscapes, autonomously executing entire processes while companies retain strategic control and oversight. Every system decision is traceable, explainable, and reversible.
Initial deployments have already demonstrated significant impact. In complex process environments, cycle times have been reduced by up to 60 to 70 percent—while simultaneously increasing accuracy, consistency, and compliance. Going forward, Horn & Company and Otera will support organizations through executive briefings, transformation assessments, and implementation programs.
“Companies can begin with an Agentic Readiness Assessment backed by a robust business case or move directly to targeted scaling toward an AI-first operating model,” Engl said, noting that such assessments are already underway with the partners’ first joint clients.
Press contact Horn & Company
Stefanie Zuberer, Head of Client Development
mobil +49 152 22726 040 | fon +49 211 302726 0 | mail [email protected]
About Horn & Company
HORN & COMPANY is a rapidly growing top management consultancy led by partners with many years of experience and in-depth industry expertise. The company specializes in consulting for banks, insurance companies, industrial goods, retail, the process industry, and automotive. The approximately 250 consultants, who have above-average scientific and technical training, design value-adding optimization programs and are guided more than others by a quantitative and data-driven understanding of consulting, a measurable requirement for the P&L effectiveness of the results, and the idea that the client organization itself takes “ownership” of the change process. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf and has offices in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Charlotte, Singapore, Vienna, and Zurich. www.horn-company.com
Press contact Otera
Samir Aziz, CMO
fon +55 119 983 906 06 I [email protected]
About Otera
Otera is the agentic automation platform powering the world’s largest agentic transformations, delivering 90%+ autonomous processing for global leaders like Allianz, Siemens, Bayer, SAAB, and Hannover Re.
