Adaptive content is content that responds to the specific circumstances in which you engage with it. Noz Urbina gives an example of how this might work.
Noz recounts a story in which he and his partner attended a wine tasting. That's the sort of event that often leaves some downtime. So the vineyard put a tablet PC at each table—one which was locked such that it showed only the vineyard's website. I'll let Noz take it from here:
As we were sipping, munching, and chatting, Elodie found a product she liked and asked an inspired question: “Do you think if I start adding things to the shopping cart, they can just add it to our bill and have it ready to pick up on the way out?”
It turns out that they couldn't. But they should have been able to.
If your content is adaptive, then you can create multiple "add to cart" functions, including one that your website knows to swap in when someone visits the website from one of the tablets in the tasting room—one that allows said visitor the option of adding items to their bill.
Adaptive content is a key to making an omnichannel experience work—one in which the experience slides seamlessly from the physical to the digital and back again.