The right person to answer this question is probably Dinakar Rimakrishnan (a good working reference is his paper "Modularity of the Rankin–Selberg $L$-series, and multiplicity one for $\mathrm{SL}(2)$"Modularity of the Rankin–Selberg $L$-series, and multiplicity one for $\mathrm{SL}(2)$"), but since he doesn't seem to use MathOverflow, here is my understanding of this. In each case, I will first discuss the local theory, then the global theory.
The isobaric sum $\pi_1 \boxplus \pi_2$ (which Langlands called the "sum operation", and by some is called the Langlands sum) is perhaps the easiest to explain. The key property is that the $L$-function of the isobaric sum is the product of the two $L$-functions:
\[L(s,\pi_1 \boxplus \pi_2) = L(s,\pi_1) L(s,\pi_2).\]
In terms of representations of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F)$ and $\mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(F)$, where $F$ is a local field, $\pi_1 \boxplus \pi_2$ is simply the normalised parabolic induction from the Levi subgroup $M \cong \mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F) \times \mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(F)$$\mathrm{M} \cong \mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F) \times \mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(F)$ to $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 + n_2}(F)$ (or rather, it is the suitable irreducible subquotient, if necessary, of this induced representation). Via the local Langlands correspondence, in terms of the corresponding $n_1$- and $n_2$-dimensional Weil–Deligne representations $\rho_1$ and $\rho_2$, the isobaric sum simply corresponds to the direct sum $\rho_1 \oplus \rho_2$; note that this is a $n_1 + n_2$-dimensional (reducible) representation of the same group.
More precisely, by $\pi_1 \boxplus \cdots \boxplus \pi_r$, I mean the induced representation $\mathrm{Ind}_{\mathrm{P}(F)}^{\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 + \cdots + n_r}(F)} \pi_1 \otimes \cdots \otimes \pi_r$ of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 + \cdots + n_r}(F)$, where $\pi_1 \otimes \cdots \otimes \pi_r$ denotes the outer tensor product of $\pi_1,\ldots,\pi_r$, which is a representation of the Levi subgroup $\mathrm{M} \cong \mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F) \times \cdots \times \mathrm{GL}_{n_r}(F)$; this is then trivially extended to a representation of the parabolic subgroup $\mathrm{P}$ with Levi subgroup $\mathrm{M}$, then induced to a representation of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 + \cdots + n_r}(F)$. If each $\pi_j$ is essentially square-integrable, then $\pi_1 \boxplus \cdots \boxplus \pi_r$ is called an induced representation of Whittaker type. These need not be irreducible, but the Langlands quotient theorem states that every irreducible admissible representation of $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$ is unitarily equivalent to the quotient of an induced representation of Whittaker type.
This extends naturally to the global setting: if $\pi_1$ and $\pi_2$ are automorphic representations of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(\mathbb{A}_F)$ and $\mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(\mathbb{A}_F)$, where now $F$ is a global field, then $\pi_1 \boxplus \pi_2$ is an automorphic representation of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 + n_2}(\mathbb{A}_F)$; it is anthe automorphic forms that for a vector space for this automorphic representation are Eisenstein series induced from the Levi subgroup $M \cong \mathrm{GL}_{n_1} \times \mathrm{GL}_{n_2}$. In particular, a classical Eisenstein series on $\mathrm{GL}_2$ has two characters associated to it (possibly the trivial characters), and this is simply induced from $\mathrm{GL}_1 \times \mathrm{GL}_1$, and the $L$-function of such an Eisenstein series is simply the product of the $L$-functions of the two characters.
For $\pi_1 \boxtimes \pi_2$ and $\pi_1 \times \pi_2$ (and $\pi_1 \otimes \pi_2$), the answer is a little less clear, because authors use these notations interchangeably. To me, $\boxtimes$ ought to denote the outer tensor product, so $\pi_1 \boxtimes \pi_2$ ought to denote a representation of the product of groups $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F) \times \mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(F)$; more precisely, should think of $\boxtimes$ as a map from $\mathcal{R}(\mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(F)) \times \mathcal{R}(\mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(F))$ to $\mathcal{R}(\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 n_2}(F))$, where $\mathcal{R}(\mathrm{GL}_n(F))$ denotes the set of irreducible admissible representations of $\mathrm{GL}_n(F)$. In terms of $\rho_1$ and $\rho_2$, this should simply be the tensor product $\rho_1 \otimes \rho_2$, which is a $n_1 n_2$-dimensional (possibly reducible) representation of the same group. Since the local Langlands correspondence is a theorem, this means there is a representation $\pi_1 \times \pi_2$ (or $\pi_1 \otimes \pi_2$) of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 n_2}(F)$ corresponding to the outer tensor product $\pi_1 \boxtimes \pi_2$. Locally, this is reasonably well-understood via the Langlands correspondence: if $\pi_1 = \boxplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \pi_{1,j}$ and $\pi_2 = \boxplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \pi_{2,k}$
\[\pi_1 = \boxplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \pi_{1, thenj}, \qquad \pi_2 = \boxplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \pi_{2,k},\]
then
\[\pi_1 \times \pi_2 = \boxplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \boxplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \pi_{1,j} \boxtimes \pi_{2,k}.\]
Equivalently, if $\rho_1 = \bigoplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \rho_{1,j}$ and $\rho_2 = \bigoplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \rho_{2,k}$
\[\rho_1 = \bigoplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \rho_{1, thenj}, \qquad \rho_2 = \bigoplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \rho_{2,k},\]
then
\[\rho_1 \otimes \rho_2 = \bigoplus_{j = 1}^{m_1} \bigoplus_{k = 1}^{m_2} \rho_{1,j} \otimes \rho_{2,k}.\]
So everything is reduced to essentially square-integrable representations (in which case understanding this tensor product can be complicated).
For the global situation, things are a little murkier, since functoriality is not a theorem in general. In particular, the issue is that if $\pi_1$ and $\pi_2$ are automorphic representations of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1}(\mathbb{A}_F)$ and $\mathrm{GL}_{n_2}(\mathbb{A}_F)$, where now $F$ is a global field, it is not known if $\pi_1 \times \pi_2$ is an automorphic representation of $\mathrm{GL}_{n_1 n_2}(\mathbb{A}_F)$. That is, we know how to define the global $L$-function $L(s,\pi_1 \times \pi_2)$ of this object (Jacquet, Piatetski-Shapiro, Shalika: "Rankin–Selberg Convolutions""Rankin–Selberg Convolutions") as a product of local $L$-functions, as well as (more or less) how to describe the local components, but we don't know that the global object obtained by gluing together these local components is a genuine automorphic representation. This is the issue of the functorial transfer of the tensor product.