Program Updates have always been set to Ask, so you sound get a pop-up to say when one is available. For obvious reasons Program updates won’t be automatic, a) they are generally much larger than the virus definitions & engine update; so you wouldn’t want it starting when you were busy.
The program update cycle is over 7 days to spread server load.
The Program update does ask you to reboot after updating, it did on mine after I carried out a manual program update on both my systems.