Horizon 2026: procurement’s agentic AI future is HERE!

At Horizon EU & UK 2026, hosted by Zycus in Vienna, procurement leaders gathered to explore the shift from source-to-pay to intake-to-outcomes, whilst celebrating stand-out leaders and unveiling the Next 50 who are shaping the future of the function. CPOstrategy was among the guests…

Staged at the InterContinental, Vienna from March 10-12, the event, hosted by Zycus – pioneers in agentic AI – brought together more than 200 senior leaders from across Europe and the UK – from global multinationals, digital transformation directors, sustainability leaders and category heads spanning banking, manufacturing, FMCG, energy, logistics and more – reflecting Horizon’s positioning as a high-level, insight-led forum rather than a traditional conference. The venue itself – blending historic grandeur with modern sophistication – mirrored the event’s central theme: bridging classical procurement thinking with the fast-emerging world of Agentic AI. 

From the outset, Horizon demonstrated its emphasis on community. The opening day’s registration and icebreaking activities quickly dissolved the usual formality of industry events, as delegates moved from introductions to collaboration. A creative, team-based painting session and an AI-themed welcome reception set the tone: this was a gathering designed not just to inform, but to connect. By the end of the first evening, conversations were already flowing with a level of openness that would thread through the following days.

Day two, billed as “The Grand Stage”, delivered the intellectual core of the conference. Proceedings opened with a welcome from Daniel Schmitz, Enterprise SaaS Executive, Zycus, who framed the day’s narrative and guided delegates through a tightly curated agenda. Early insights from Magnus Bergfors, Senior Director Analyst – Sourcing and Procurement Technology at Gartner established a clear message echoed throughout the event: agentic AI is rapidly becoming a defining force in procurement, separating leaders from laggards in the near term. Agentic sourcing is no longer merely a vision, and the window for positioning is now. “By 2028, 90% of all sourcing events, by transaction volume, will benefit from some degree of AI assistance,” he declared. “with 25% running fully autonomously.”

Building upon this, Zycus founder and CEO, Aatish Dedhia presented a compelling vision for the evolution from source-to-pay to intake-to-outcomes, positioning autonomous agents as decision-makers capable of transforming procurement from a process-driven function into one focused on outcomes.

Dedhia’s keynote was a genuine operating model argument: that the procurement function as currently architected – workflow-heavy, process-first, tool-centric – was built for a world that no longer exists. The shift he articulated, from source-to-pay to intake-to-outcomes, reframed the entire purpose of procurement technology; the human role moving upstream: to judgment, strategy and relationships that machines cannot replicate. “Workflow-heavy S2P systems weren’t built for today’s velocity,” he told the audience. “Agentic AI doesn’t just execute – it decides, orchestrates, and delivers outcomes. This is the operating model shift procurement has been waiting for.” This was a founder who has spent years building toward a thesis, standing in front of 200 senior procurement leaders and saying: the model has shifted, and here is exactly how. 

Forrester’s Jeffrey Rajamani followed with a sharp case for autonomous negotiation in tail spend – where most teams aren’t yet looking, and where the yield is highest. IDC’s Patrick Reymann provided the most practically useful contribution: a maturity model for assessing where your organisation actually stands, not just where it aspires to be.

Crucially, Horizon balanced visionary thinking with grounded, real-world application. John Mahjoubi, Procurement Director at Bolt offered a candid account of implementing intake-to-outcomes in practice, while Hervé Le Faou, the CPO of Heineken brought the best practices of scaling consistency across 80 business units without destroying local relevance. Stedrick Saayman, heading procurement at Tiger Brands, Andreas Stylianou, Manager Finance Systems and Processes, Bank of Cyprus, George Charalambous, Sr. Procurement Consultant and Gabriel Kiewek, the COO from Nippon Gases added sectoral and geographic breadth that kept the programme from feeling like a single-industry showcase.

The ‘Procurement 2030: Humans + AI Agents’ panel – featuring EY’s Armijn Verweij and Professor David Loseby from Leeds University Business School – treated the central question (what remains meaningfully human when agents can analyse, negotiate and execute?) as a genuinely open question, not a prompt for reassuring platitudes. The ‘AI Strategy: Securing the Right Partner’ panel with Tenneco, Tate & Lyle, and Air Liquide produced the clearest takeaway of the day: choosing an AI partner is no longer a technology decision – it is a strategic operating commitment.

Up close and personal

One of the most significant elements of Horizon happened behind closed doors. Aatish Dedhia personally chaired the AI Council – an invitation-only forum for senior CPOs and industry experts to discuss the next phase of agentic AI vision, use cases and roadmap in an unfiltered setting.

No slides. No vendor pitch. Dedhia in the room, listening as much as leading – a founder stress-testing his own roadmap against the real-world priorities of the people who will have to implement it. The quality of that exchange, and Zycus’s willingness to host it without agenda, signalled something important: this is a company that sees its relationship with procurement leadership as a genuine thought partnership, not a customer management exercise.

The live demo: no script, no safety net

The Merlin Agentic Platform demo – run live by Zycus Product Experts – Bikash Mohanty, Chinmaya Behera, and Shiv Agarwal – walked the room through real procurement workflows end to end: including intake handling, sourcing orchestration and autonomous negotiation. Watching a system actually perform, in real time, in front of 200 senior professionals, moved the conversation from conceptual to credible. Indeed Horizon’s real strength lay in its culture of openness. Networking breakfasts, informal discussions, and hands-on demo pods created space for genuine knowledge exchange. Delegates shared not only success stories, but also challenges and lessons learned, contributing to an atmosphere that felt notably collaborative rather than performative.

The evening Gala Dinner, held at the opulent Liechtenstein City Palace, provided a standout moment of recognition and celebration. Among the award winners, John Mahjoubi was honoured with the High Performing Leader Award on behalf of Bolt and its procurement team acknowledging a transformation journey that exemplified the event’s core themes of innovation and execution. The full run-down of all the award winners are here…

The evening of Day two also saw the launch of the Next 50 – CPONext 50 Executives to Watch in Europe and the UK 2026 – spotlighting a new generation of procurement leaders shaping the future of the function. Building on Zycus’ established CPONext programme, the initiative highlights rising and established executives driving digital transformation, innovation and strategic impact across the region, reinforcing the conference’s focus not just on technology, but on the people leading change from firms such as Danone, Air France, BP and Barclays, emphasising transformation leadership, strategic impact and the adoption of agentic-driven AI for sourcing, contracting and invoicing. It was a night that will live long in the memory.

Final day

Day three shifted toward reflection and future readiness. Sessions explored the maturity journey from automation to full autonomy, alongside a renewed emphasis on the human skills required to lead in an AI-enabled environment: communication, adaptability and strategic judgement. The closing sessions reinforced a crystal clear takeaway: while the technology is advancing rapidly, procurement leadership will ultimately be defined by how effectively organisations combine AI capabilities with human insight and governance.

Across the three days, Horizon 2026 delivered a cohesive and compelling narrative. Procurement is no longer simply evolving, it is being redefined. And in stunning Vienna, surrounded by a highly engaged community of peers and leaders, Horizon its guests left not only with new ideas, but also with a shared sense of direction for what comes next. Just make sure your name is down for the next Horizon event.

More Horizon coverage coming up!

Check out the full edition of CPOstrategy here.