AA has always worked in my car and it looks the same as when connected with the cable,I'm pretty sure that the first time i used it and also when VW replaced the infotainment unit i had to give it a bump start by pressing play on an app on my phone and after that it just works.
As for AA starting up everytime in the app on your phone click "start android auto automatically" and you get 3 choices "always" "If used on last drive" and "Default (set by car" No idea what the last one does?