Active tuned mass damper (ATMD) is widely adopted as a reliable active device to protect tall buildings subjected to earthquake excitations from severe seismic damages. Soil-structure interaction (SSI) phenomena effects on the free vibration characteristics and the seismic responses of tall structures. This study presents the design of an adaptive sliding sector controller (ASSC) for the active control of tall buildings equipped with an ATMD system considering the SSI effects. The ASSC technique is designed based on the hyper-surface of the sliding mode which is surrounded by a sector and can consider the uncertainty of system parameters. To validate the efficiency of the ASSC technique, its design is first implemented for a 40-story building equipped with an ATMD system under an artificial earthquake excitation for different soil types. Then, the performance of the designed ASSC technique is evaluated in mitigating the seismic responses of the structure subjected to five real earthquake excitations considering the SSI effects. In addition, the efficiency of the designed ASSC strategy is compared against that of the two controller techniques including proportional-integral-derivative (PID) and linear-quadratic regulator (LQR). Comparative results demonstrate the efficiency of the ASSC strategy for the reduction of the structural responses under real earthquake excitations.