Not sure WHAT is going on but 1809 issue with adaptive brightness and that the brightness will NOT change between battery and plugged in WAS FIXED in an Update last December to early January depending on your system.
I had the EXACT same issue and it was resolved.
NOW in June 2019 the 1903 came - on HP Envy running Windows 10 - and the adaptive brightness is GONE again and the issue of battery v plugged in is back again. SO ANNOYING. Sent numerous Feedback Hub reports but that really is useless.
Really weird that if you click on battery on task bar and open up settings I get this message:
YES it is set to 100% on battery BUT IF I change it to 80% which is what I want it ALL I get is this message and then I have to manually change it back and worth - REALLY ANNOYING
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE THEM TO FIX THIS