AI Governance and Ethical Frameworks in Digital Enterprises: A CIO-Centric Governance Model

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integral and unavoidable part of modern digital businesses. It helps businesses with automation, predictive analytics, and decision-making. However, the rapid rise of AI has outpaced the development of governance, leading to challenges in ethics, operations, and leadership . Guidelines such as the European Union AI Act (European Union, 2024), ISO/IEC 42001 (ISO/IEC, 2023), and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (NIST, 2023) offer important insights but do not clearly define the executive leadership roles required for AI governance. The Chief Information Officer (CIO), who oversees enterprise IT governance, is vital in ensuring the ethical and compliant use of AI. Yet, there is little research on CIO skills, governance duties, and leadership models specific to AI. This paper aims to lay the foundation for developing a CIO-focused AI governance framework using a sequential, exploratory, mixed-methods approach. The qualitative phase will investigate executive governance views, followed by quantitative validation among IT governance professionals. This research aims to close the gap in leadership and governance by creating a research-based framework for CIO-led AI governance.