CIOs need transparent view of AI deployment

AI is becoming a major enterprise investment, but much of the spending is happening outside the IT budget, creating visibility, governance, and ROI challenges for CIOs. The strategic implication is that IT must shift from owning AI outright to acting as the chief integration office—setting architecture, controls, and a common operating model that ties distributed AI initiatives back to business outcomes. For IT organizations, success will depend less on algorithms alone and more on process redesign, change management, data governance, and cross-functional alignment to scale the AI use cases that deliver measurable value.