An adaptive control system and method for controlling the path feed rate to achieve a target spindle load during machine tool operations. The adaptive control system can provide load monitoring capability, which will actively monitor an incoming load signal from a spindle drive and determine if it exceeds warning and alarm levels. If the incoming load being monitored exceeds the set warning level, a warning output is asserted and maintained until the incoming load falls below the set warning level. If the incoming load exceeds the set alarm level, the alarm output and feed hold output are asserted and maintained until an adaptive controller reset is requested. Normal cutting operations cannot resume until the conditions that generated the alarm level are addressed. Adaptive control of machine tool operations is provided by monitoring of the incoming load and requesting feed rate changes based on a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller algorithm. The adaptive controller monitors the incoming load until an arming limit is exceeded, at which point the adaptive controller proceeds to run the PID control algorithm to calculate a new feed rate that will cause the incoming load to obtain the user requested value. An interface application allows the user to set and view registers and the input/output status of the adaptive controller. The adaptive control system can be fully integrated into the machine tool management system, or can be integrated with custom tool interfaces. The adaptive control system can also be operated using a manual interface provided to the operator with no connection to tooling data.