In this study, an adaptive sliding-mode controller was designed for use in a class of large-scale systems that exhibit mismatched uncertainties and exogenous disturbances. First, a new sliding mode controller was proposed using only output variables. Adaptation laws were developed for calculating the unknown upper bounds of mismatched uncertainties; these updated values were used to establish a class of decentralized adaptive output feedback controllers. Both sliding surfaces and adaptive sliding-mode controllers can be easily attained using a linear matrix inequality technique. Moreover, a stability analysis was conducted to assess the overall system. Finally, a numerical example was used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.