Otera and Horn & Company Partner to Scale Autonomous Operations in Regulated Enterprises

The overwhelming majority of large enterprises have started piloting agentic AI, but fewer than 15% have successfully scaled beyond departmental experiments.

The gap between a working pilot and an operating model that runs autonomously across the business is where most initiatives stall. Not because the technology fails. Because the transformation infrastructure to embed it was never built.

That gap has two sides. Most consulting engagements diagnose the organizational problem but have no production-ready autonomous agents to deploy. Most software vendors have the agents but can't drive the organizational transformation required to make autonomy stick. Enterprises get one or the other. Rarely both.

This partnership is built around that gap. Otera and Horn & Company, a management consultancy with deep expertise in banking, insurance, manufacturing, and automotive, are partnering to help enterprises build autonomous operations in regulated industries from assessment through to agents running in production.

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What each side brings

Horn & Company brings transformation architecture: executive alignment, AI-strategy, AI-first operating model design, and governance structures that make autonomous operations sustainable and auditable. With around 250 consultants across Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Singapore, Vienna, Zürich, and other offices, they work at the intersection of strategy and measurable P&L impact.

Otera brings the autonomous AI agents that turn operations into end-to-end autonomous processes. The platform is purpose-built for regulated, mission-critical environments where decision quality, auditability, and compliance are non-negotiable. It sits on top of existing IT infrastructure with no core system changes required, executing entire processes autonomously while the business retains strategic oversight. Every agent decision is fully traceable and explainable.

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Why this matters now

Access to AI technology is no longer the bottleneck. 

What's missing in most enterprises is a transformation approach that delivers measurable impact and sustainable economic value. That's the framing Dr. Oliver Laitenberger, Managing Partner at Horn & Company, brings to the partnership:

"Agentic AI is a real game-changer. It's not another tool for point automation. It's an approach that makes technology an integral part of the business and fundamentally changes how value is created." Dr. Oliver Laitenberger, Managing Partner, Horn & Company

On Otera's side, the conviction is that real transformation doesn't come from new tools. It comes from a fundamentally new operating model. As Stefan Engl, CEO and Co-founder of Otera, put it:

"Most enterprises think they can get there by picking a model, writing a prompt, and stitching a few tools together. That won't work. You need specialized agents precise enough that when you chain all operational decisions together, the system still holds. You also need an organization ready to operate around it. Getting both right is the whole game." Stefan Engl, CEO and Co-founder, Otera

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‍What it looks like in practice

The partnership offers enterprises a clear path from assessment to production: an Agentic Viability Assessment backed by a concrete business case, targeted scaling toward an AI-first operating model, or a full implementation program. Assessments are already underway with joint customers.

In existing deployments, processes that previously took days now run in hours, with full auditability at every step. For CEOs and operations leaders with accountability for results, the proposition is direct: measurable operational outcomes on a defined timeline, tracked against KPIs for cycle time, cost, and quality.

Interested in Partnering with Otera? Learn more about the Otera Partner Program →

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