So far "Auto" is working out quite nicely to see which exposures work the best. I think I'm going to rename "Auto" to "Get me Closer Quickly".
Which is the aim of the design of the new AI based Auto. Also, it should be noted that I personally had a bit to do with training the new AI based Auto. I adjusted over 1K of my images from all sorts of situations and conditions including under/over exposures, high ISO, studio and artificial lighting as well as landscape day and nite shots. I was charged with making those adjustments I personally would do for my images (because, well, they were my images).
Yes, the new Auto is a bit conservative with extreme highlights with a tendency of texture and detail being important. Also, the shadows tend to be fairly open...
The goal here is to be consistent in "improving" an image's global based setting and trying to improve the workflow for selection editing. Some images may need little or no further adjustments...most will need tweaking either globally or locally.
The old Auto was really and old crude and primitive attempt to generally adjust black and whitepoints with little other finesse to other settings. It sucked...it was just about as likely to screw an image up as make an improvement...but the new Auto has made great strides as a first pass adjustment.