Turkey has for months frustrated the West with its cautious position against IS, but there appears to have been a sea change in its policy following Erdogan's trip last week to the United States.
"We will hold discussions with our relevent institutions this week. We will definitely be where we need to be," Erdogan said in a keynote address to a World Economic Forum meeting in Istanbul.
"We cannot stay out of this," he added.
Turkey has so far taken in over 160,000 refugees who fled the IS assault around the town of Ain al-Arab, but Erdogan said it would be better if they could live safely in their own country.
The president also reaffirmed his call for a buffer zone and no-fly zone within Syria to protect Turkey's borders and the refugees. He also indicated ground forces could be needed.
"It is not possible only from the air, there is also a ground dimension," he said.
In a hugely rare intervention, Turkey's top general, Necdet Ozel, will speak to the cabinet on Tuesday, Davutoglu added. Parliament will then debate the mandates on Thursday, paving the way for military action, although what that will involve is still not clear.
Erdogan, who has long pressed for the ouster of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, indicated that he did not think military action would be enough to thwart IS and long-term solutions were needed to solve political problems in Syria and Iraq.
"Instead of handling it this way, we should send our Syrian brothers to their own country through a safe zone.