CameraX has an API to focus at certain areas which would be auto exposure.
You can reference https://proandroiddev.com/android-camerax-tap-to-focus-pinch-to-zoom-zoom-slider-eb88f3aa6fc6 to change the focus point.
Combined with the mlkit face detection https://github.com/googlesamples/mlkit/tree/master/android/vision-quickstart, it would be able to trigger the focus after the face was detected.