Retail has never had more data, yet many operators still struggle with the same fundamental question: Do we truly know what we have, where it is, and whether it’s available for the customer right now?
At NRF 2026, that challenge sat at the heart of a timely conversation between Brent Brown of Zebra Technologies and Chris Diorio, CEO of Impinj. Their message was clear: RFID is no longer just a “nice-to-have” operational tool. It’s becoming an enterprise capability. And Gen2X is positioned to accelerate that shift by bringing better speed, stronger accuracy, expanded supply chain reach, and privacy controls that fit modern expectations.
As Diorio put it early in the discussion, Gen2X is “a compatible set of extensions to the industry’s radio protocol.” What matters for retailers is the practical outcome. According to him, Gen2X “improves inventory accuracy, reduces inventory time, reduces infrastructure cost, and protects consumer privacy.” It’s a bold statement, but one grounded in familiar retail realities. So far, Impinj’s M800 series RFID tag chips and inlays, Impinj E Family reader chips and Impinj R700 series RFID fixed readers comes with Gen2X upgrade.
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Retail Inventory Has Moved to the Centre of the Experience
Brown spoke less about technology for its own sake and more about what’s forcing retailers to rethink the operating model. “Retail in itself is really changing,” he said, emphasizing that consumer expectations increasingly define how an enterprise runs.
In his words, “the consumer is becoming much more important in the operations of the enterprise and how we service.” That idea echoes across NRF every year, but Brown tied it to a tangible operational truth: availability.
For retailers, success often comes down to “having the right products on the shelf at the right time,” he noted. And RFID, done well, becomes the reliability layer underneath that promise.
Brown described RFID implementation as a core capability that ensures what the retailer believes is available actually is available to the shopper. With Gen2X, he sees new functionality that goes beyond baseline scanning and counting. What stands out to him is that Gen2X brings “some unique features… that really enrich the capability of the core technology right to the point of delivering to the end customer value.”
In retail terms, that means Gen2X isn’t only about finding more tags. It’s about supporting a better shopping journey, fewer disappointed customers, fewer cancelled orders, and fewer “phantom out-of-stocks” caused by mismatched inventory records.
From Store-level RFID to End-to-End Supply Chain Intelligence
RFID’s retail story started with item-level visibility in the store. That was nearly 2 decades ago. What’s changing now is scale and ambition, and firms like Zebra and Impinj are taking the lead in RFID innovations, standards, and product development to meet the evolving expectations of businesses as well as end users.
Brown explained that retailers are expanding beyond the four walls. “Retailers were first implementing this technology in the store,” he said. Now, they’re pushing RFID upstream into “their distribution centers… even all the way back to the suppliers.”
This is where Gen2X becomes especially relevant. Once RFID stretches across the full supply chain, it becomes more than an inventory tool. It becomes a trust layer.
What is Impinj Gen2X? The Gen2X Advantage
Retailers operating across complex supplier networks understand that lifecycle visibility matters, not just for speed and efficiency, but for compliance, shrink reduction, and returns verification. The stronger the chain of custody, the better retailers can protect margin and preserve customer trust.
Gen2X upgrade builds on the existing EPC Gen2 / ISO 18000-63 standards and unlocks better performance in RFID technology.
Brown highlighted the importance of maintaining confidence in what is being tracked: “How do we ensure the integrity and the authenticity of those items that are tagged?” He believes this is one of the most distinct advantages Gen2X can deliver, saying it’s “very unique to what Gen2X brings to those products through the life cycle.”
With the advanced Gen2X upgrades (can be seen on Impinj’s M830 inlays) retailers can:
a.Speed inventory counts
b. Increase read range
c. Declutter dense RFID environments
d. Protect consumers
e. Inhibit tag/item counterfeiting
f. Reduce solution cost
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Privacy Built For Modern Retail: Protected Mode and “invisible” Tags After Purchase
No retail technology conversation is complete without addressing privacy. Diorio spoke directly to how Gen2X supports consumer expectations without sacrificing operational capability.
“Both of our companies are very concerned about consumer privacy,” he said, highlighting a Gen2X feature called Protected Mode.
At a practical level, Protected Mode enables a retailer, “at point of sale,” to make the tag “invisible,” meaning “non-responsive unless the owner of the tag first provides support.”
The implication is important. Retailers have historically faced an uncomfortable tradeoff: disable tags permanently to address privacy, or keep them readable and risk consumer distrust. Protected Mode introduces something more nuanced, where privacy protection can coexist with returns and reverse logistics.
Diorio explained that the retailer can protect the item after purchase, but if the customer comes back to return it, “the retailer can put it back on the shelf.”
In real operational terms, that translates into shorter return-to-shelf time, faster restocking, fewer lost sales opportunities, and better inventory accuracy immediately after a product re-enters store stock.
Starting the RFID Journey: Lead with Inventory, Then Build Outward
For retailers still early in RFID adoption, Brown’s recommendation was direct. Focus on the fundamentals before chasing every adjacent use case.
“The core around their inventory management is really the essence of what they need,” he said.
From there, expansion becomes more natural and more sustainable. Brown outlined how retailers typically build from core inventory into “things happening at the retail exit,” capabilities around “the point of sale,” “receiving in the store,” and then, eventually, into upstream supply chain workflows.
“These are all core built off of core inventory,” he added, reinforcing that the most successful RFID programs tend to have strong foundations: repeatable counting, reliable item location, and accurate on-hand numbers.
In other words, inventory isn’t one use case among many. It’s the platform that everything else depends on.
The Performance Leap That Retailers Will Feel Day-to-Day
RFID improvements often sound incremental until you view them through a store operations lens. Faster read rates, better accuracy in dense environments, and improved capture of hard-to-read items can change staffing requirements and store rhythm in ways that are immediately visible.
Brown pointed toward that performance edge as a meaningful advantage: “There’s a performance capability there that we’re going to see add value to how we want to manage and control this inventory.”
He also hinted that what’s currently available may only be part of the story. “I’m really excited about what Impinj has brought… today,” he said, but he’s also watching what comes next. “I’m probably equally excited about the things… that are not yet released… that are going to be just as exciting.”
Brown believes upcoming enhancements will “enhance the performance and capabilities… beyond what we even know today.”
That forward-looking confidence matters. In enterprise retail, technology decisions are long-term commitments. Leaders need confidence that an investment made today will continue to compound in value.
The Cost of Waiting is Larger than Most Retailers Realize
When asked about risk, Brown framed the question not as a tech roadmap decision, but as a competitive imperative.
“The risk of waiting in the adoption of RFID in general is… not a good situation for most of our customers,” he said, suggesting that retailers who delay could find themselves playing catch-up while competitors turn inventory accuracy into a differentiator.
He also emphasized Zebra’s belief that Gen2X isn’t simply an upgrade. It’s a strategic step forward. “The Gen2X capabilities create this differentiation,” Brown said, describing the Zebra–Impinj partnership as a way to help customers extract value faster and pursue enterprise-wide use cases with confidence.
What Gen2X Really Signals For Retail Leaders
The NRF 2026 conversation between Zebra and Impinj was notable because it wasn’t positioned as a theoretical “future of RFID” discussion. It was about execution. About taking something proven at scale and making it more capable, more scalable, more secure, and more aligned with the realities of modern retail.
Diorio summarized Gen2X in terms retailers care about most: better accuracy, faster inventory, lower infrastructure cost, and privacy built into the operating model.
Brown grounded that value in customer experience and enterprise performance, reminding the industry that as retail changes, the winners will be the ones who can consistently deliver availability with confidence.
And perhaps the most telling point was this: Gen2X isn’t being discussed as a standalone innovation. It’s being framed as a foundation for what comes next, across stores, distribution centers, suppliers, and the full product lifecycle.
Because in a world where the customer is expecting the right product, in the right place, at the right time, “good enough” inventory visibility is no longer good enough.
Return-to-shelf (RTS): Why Gen2X Privacy + Reversibility Matters
The old problem: “Kill” commands hurt retail outcomes. Traditional RFID privacy handling often relied on “kill” (permanently disabling the tag).
But if you kill the tag at POS:
a. You lose return processing automation.
b. You lose return-to-shelf speed.
c. You lose fraud detection
d. You lose re-commerce / reverse logistics traceability
Gen2X Approach: Reversible Privacy with “Protected Mode”
Impinj’s Protected Mode (part of Gen2X) lets visibility be enabled/disabled without permanently killing the tag.
Impinj specifically says this:
a. Protects consumer privacy
b. Supports easy purchase + returns
c. Helps prevent fraudulent returns
And enables retailers to reintegrate returned items into inventory.
Finally, the next era belongs to retailers who treat inventory as a strategic advantage, not a back-office function. RFID Gen2X standards are shaping up to be one of the technologies that help them do exactly that.
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