What benefits could we learn more from technology/data science?

There seems to be a lot of push recently with universities, companies of all kind to have recent undergrads be familiar with technology, possibly even coding or even understanding a bit about data science/statistics. The CEO at my current AM firm constantly stresses for people to be up to date with technology and embrace how it will impact the financial industry (more complex financial products, better methods to understand information, implementing better strategies, increasing efficiency.etc.).

But the thing is I haven't found a true reason to really dedicate a lot of resources into learning more about technology, simply because my day-to-day work doesn't directly involve it. I also believe that when you are hired, you are hired to specifically fill in certain job functions. Improving current processes may be okay, but may be offputting for direct managers. For example, I had a friend in BB IB internship try to use VBA to automate some financial models, and his managers thought it was a bit weird and ultimately decided not to extend a full-time offer because it showed them that his interests didn't involve doing the BAU. I think this is very common in financial/non-technical corporate roles where knowing too much shows that you aren't very passionate about the current responsibilities.

With that said, what do you think is the best way to get a breadth of learning technology and driving career success? Is there going to be a direct impact on roles in finance that don't typically involve coding? Is it important to understand the logic over really the syntax or implementation? Is understanding code going to be more important in non-technical functions?