In this paper, the design of sliding mode preview control (SMPC) based consensus for nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) is presented. First, a novel preview information-based equality constraint is introduced and an augmented error system is constructed for each follower agent. Next, a distributed SMPC strategy is proposed by designing integral-type sliding function. Thereafter, the preview control (PC) law design problem is transformed into the stability problem of the augmented system and a linear matrix inequality (LMI) based sufficient condition is given, which can guarantee the states of all agents achieving tracking consensus and ensure a guaranteed level of performance on sliding surface. A distributed adaptive sliding mode control (SMC) law is synthesized such that the sliding surface is reachable. Further, by employing the Lyapunov theory together with mathematical analysis, the gains of the controller can be obtained. Finally, two simulation examples demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the developed method.