LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA real-time discovery alerts in the fourth observing run

More than half a decade has passed since the real-time coincident detection of gravitational waves (GWs) and electromagnetic (EM) radiation from the binary neutron star merger, GW170817. During the 2019-2020 LIGO-Virgo third observing run (O3), discovery alerts for several tens of candidates were sent publicly to the EM and neutrino communities for follow-up. The events spanned greater distances and sky-localizations ranging from tens to thousands of square degrees. The fourth observing run (O4), which is scheduled to begin later in 2023, is expected to observe up to twice as many events as O3. Several of these are expected to be promising candidates for multi-messenger astronomy, but it also increases the risk and burden of follow-up. LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA has performed several upgrades to the alert infrastructure to assist the external community. In this talk, I will describe the public alert campaign of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration for O4.