> I thought ambient occlusion (as opposed to other GI algorithms) was 
> specifically suited to GPU implementation?

There's a variety of ways to implement AO, it just so happens someone 
developed a clever way to approximate AO very quickly on the GPU. 
Raytracers typically use a different method to compute AO that is not 
possible (or would be very slow/tricky) on GPUs.

> Anyway, I just thought if you weren't using ray tracing, it ought to be 
> possibly to run on the GPU. I guess not...

If you're not using any features of the ray tracer then isn't what you see 
in the edit view good enough?

> (What's the point of a ray tracer in a product that only renders 
> triangles?)

Ermm, physically correct multi-level reflections and refractions, more 
accurate GI, better AA, more accurate shadows, basically all the benefits of 
a raytracer rendering shapes other than triangles.

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