Walking away from NRF this year, one message came through loud and clear: retail is no longer just a merchandising business — it’s a technology business. Across conversations, booths, demos, and side events, our team consistently heard the same themes repeated from different corners of the show floor. Together, they paint a compelling picture of where retail is heading — and why RAIN RFID is increasingly central to that future.

A Tech-Dominated NRF

NRF felt different this year. Attendance was somewhat lower and more geographically concentrated, but the technology focus was stronger than ever. Major sponsors and floor presence came not from traditional retail brands, but from global technology leaders. Retail is now being framed , and funded, as a digital, data-driven ecosystem.

Artificial Intelligence was everywhere, unsurprisingly. What stood out, however, was the shift from abstract “AI” to agentic AI and AI at the edge — systems designed to act, assist, and augment human decision-making in real time. These technologies are only as powerful as the data feeding them, and that reality was implicit in nearly every serious conversation.

RFID Has Moved From “Innovation” to “Infrastructure”

While “RAIN RFID” as a term was not always front and center, RFID itself was more visible and normalized than ever. Hardware vendors, system integrators, and solution providers consistently treated RFID not as a differentiator, but as part of the air retail now breathes.

Multiple attendees remarked that the number of RFID-related companies on the show floor continues to grow year over year. Importantly, RFID was no longer framed as a single-purpose inventory tool. Instead, it appeared as foundational infrastructure — enabling visibility, automation, loss prevention, authentication, returns processing, and customer engagement.

Smartphones as RFID Readers: A Turning Point

One of the most talked-about developments was the rapid emergence of RAIN-enabled smartphones. Demonstrations across multiple booths showed that this is no longer experimental — it’s becoming a mainstream form factor.

What made these demos compelling wasn’t just that a phone could read tags. It was what retailers could do with that capability:

  • Empower store associates with instant product intelligence
  • Authenticate goods at point of sale
  • Enable consumer-facing experiences without friction
  • Extend RFID visibility directly to the edge — including customers themselves

Importantly, these were net-new use cases, not simple replacements for existing handhelds or fixed infrastructure. They highlighted a shift from RFID as an operational tool to RAIN RFID as a data bridge between physical products, digital systems, and people. For a deeper look at how RAIN-enabled smartphones could transform the retail experience — from personalized customer engagement to sustainability transparency — see our NRF preview: When Smartphones Become the Bridge Between Products, People, and Possibility.

From Efficiency to Strategy: Data Is the Real Value

Several discussions underscored a critical evolution: many retailers now see RAIN RFID data as strategic, not merely operational. Inventory accuracy and shrink reduction are table stakes. The real value lies in how RAIN RFID data feeds analytics, AI systems, and customer engagement platforms.

Retailers are increasingly asking not “Can we capture the data?” but “How do we use it to make better decisions and create new value?” That shift elevates RAIN RFID from a technology choice to a data backbone — one that supports everything from personalization to circular economy models. It’s a shift from digital transformation to digital integration.

Circularity, Returns, and Durable Tags

While sustainability messaging was less overt than at European shows, interest in returns logistics, circularity, and durable tagging was clearly rising — particularly in adjacent NRF events focused on reverse logistics.

Durable, embedded, and washable tags attracted notable attention, driven not only by regulatory pressures like Digital Product Passports, but by broader commercial needs:

  • High-value returns management
  • Recommerce and refurbishment
  • Lifecycle tracking
  • Authentication and fraud prevention

These use cases reinforce the idea that products are becoming long-lived data assets, not disposable SKUs — and RFID is uniquely suited to support that transition.

A Strong Signal for the RAIN Ecosystem

Across all these conversations, one unifying insight emerged: retail’s future depends on trusted, scalable, real-time data from the physical world.

AI, automation, edge computing, and customer engagement all require a reliable physical-to-digital link. NRF made it clear that RAIN RFID is increasingly viewed not as a niche technology, but as core infrastructure — quietly enabling the next generation of retail innovation. The conversation has shifted from digital transformation to digital integration and RAIN RFID is the connective tissue making that integration possible.

For the RAIN ecosystem, this represents a significant opportunity:

  • To position RAIN RFID as the foundation for AI-ready retail
  • To highlight new form factors and consumer-facing use cases
  • To engage retailers not just on efficiency, but on growth, strategy, and experience

NRF didn’t just show where retail is today. It offered a glimpse of what’s next — and it’s a future where RAIN RFID provides the data backbone retailers need to thrive.