Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – September 2021 Update

We have a scenario where applications that run infrequently but regularly needs to be able to send/receive emails (thus authenticate without user interaction).
It can be anything from minutes up to several months between each run of these applications.

From what I understand reading this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/client-developer/legacy-protocols/how-to-authenticate-an-imap-pop-smtp-application-by-using-oauth#get-an-access-token

, an AccessToken issued by the Client credentials grant flow is not an option when you authenticate with XOAUTH2 mechanism. Just to be clear; are we forced to use Microsoft GraphAPI then, in order to send/receive emails when we use Exchange online and have no possibility to have user interaction?