I have a choice of vehicles to use and will use an auto for traffic jam town driving and a manual for long runs on decent roads.
Autos tended to use more fuel in days of old but modern ones seem on par with the same manual versions.
One thing I will add is that the "so called" autos at the cheaper end of the scale that simply change gear by electronics on a manual box are not the nicest things to drive compared to a "true" automatic IMHO
The Bentley Bentaga that I used a while back was automatic and great fun