Core question
Should IT own our AI strategy?
Short answer
IT should own AI infrastructure, not AI strategy. Those are different responsibilities. Governance of AI decisions requires cross-functional authority and strategic judgment about the business, which is not what a technology team is structured or resourced to provide.
You cannot build an AI-driven business if AI is stuck in the IT department. AI needs to reach HR, finance, the shop floor, and the boardroom. If people touch it, they understand it.
The distinction that matters is between infrastructure and direction. Deciding which model to run, how to secure it, and how it connects to your systems is technology work and IT should own it. Deciding which business problem is worth solving, what the return has to be to justify the spend, and what an acceptable risk looks like is executive work. Handing the second set of decisions to the team that owns the first set is how organizations end up with well-built systems nobody needed.
There is a related question about who owns governance across the company, which is a separate problem with its own answer.