I think they still have that last genuine late career “come back album” left in the tank. Now that the “songs of” era seems to be over, I think they will go back to some basics for their next one. Bono and Edge can continue doing some features if they want to expand their reach and fulfill their relevancy needs. I expect the next one to be more rock, less pop, stripped down sound.
If I may offer my opinion,
I kind of have to disagree when people argue that the last 2 records - (SOI in particular) - were "over-produced." That's a word that gets thrown around frequently (not here, necessarily; I'm too new to the forum to know that--but online in general), usually to connote "overly-polished." Those are two different things.
If anything, my issue with SOI was that it was somewhat under-produced. For example, Every Breaking Wave, Volcano and California sound quite thin production-wise. On these particular tracks, it feels like U2 tried to get back to a real "band" sound. Many songs feature what sounds like one guitar, bass, drums and maybe a keyboard part or two plus a couple of tracks of vocals. That should be exciting; I know a lot of former fans who have been clamoring for this for well over a decade now. Instead, though, the record sounds a little flat and uninspired, partly because slick production doesn't necessarily complement a minimalist approach. The reason U2's 80s and 90s records worked so well is that the production helped to make mountains out of molehills. The Joshua Tree, for example, is a pretty sparse record, but the way it was tracked and mixed really benefited it in that every single element seems to exist to bolster the next. Mostly it was smooth, but some rough edges were allowed to remain. And as Bono put it at the time, U2 was very much a four-legged table. Everyone's contributions were meaningful.
But the last few records, (but really SOI in particular..) seem to suffer from a situation where U2 as a band and their production team(s) simply show up to lay down songs, but nobody is overly concerned with making them sonically interesting. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel that oftentimes, our favorite records resonate with us deeply because the production matches the material. U2's rhythm section, being solid and workmanlike but never particularly elaborate, doesn't benefit from a boring-assed OneRepublic-style sheen. It just flattens out their dynamics, which is part of what makes them a unique band.
If the band are going to split up production duties among 2 to 5 hired guns anyway, then perhaps they should hire the best person for each job. For example having say... Butch Vig produce the rhythm section--or maybe the entire song, in the case of an up-tempo rocker--would certainly lend some girth and liveliness to that side of the material, which would (one hopes) force Edge, Bono, and whatever producer(s) they opted to bring in to dig deeper and push harder to really deliver the goods on whatever vibe they're trying to conjure. Hell, record Larry and Adam to tape. Get great, one-take live performances, and don't edit them any more than is necessary. Take risks again.
I really think what this band needs to do is to just indulge their own instincts and not worry about what's happening in the pop charts. It's okay that they let the broader culture influence what they're doing, but it shouldn't be the ultimate decider. Trying to write a hit record as a 45+ year-old white dude is, at this point in history, a fool's errand. They are inherently unable to access the heart of the present youth culture, and that's as it should be. That's not to say they couldn't have another big hit, but it seems to me that it's far more likely to occur with recorded material that sounds like everyone is invested and committed to it, as opposed to material that merely sounds competently designed to compete in today's marketplace.
TL;DR: I actually do like SOI - a lot... I just think it would have been better if it had been produced creatively instead of effectively.
